RUSKID    AF>D    TH£ 


R6LIGIOD  or  BGAUTY 


M 
i 

\    '■ 

: 

I 
= 


REESE  LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Received  ,  igo    . 

,  Accession  No.    H2.;o()       .   Class  No. 


R  U  S  K  I  N 


AND     THE 


RELIGION    OF    BEAUTY 


R  U  S  K  I  N 


AND   THE 


RELIGION   OF   BEAUTY 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  FRENCH  OF 

R.   DE   LA   SIZERANNE 

L-. 

BY 

THE  COUNTESS  OF  GALLOWAY 


"  To  have  pleasure  rightly" 


OF    TH~ 

(  UNIVERS 


JAMES     POTT     &     CO. 

119  &  121  WEST  23rd  STREET 

NEW  YORK 

LONDON :  GEORGE  ALLEN 


ru 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

THESE  three  essays  on  Ruskin  and  the  Religion  of 
Beauty  appeared  first  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 
and  were    subsequently  published  in   the   form    of  a 
book  which  has,  I  believe,  been  widely  read  in  France. 
Perhaps  those  who  already  belong  to  the  band  of  Mr. 
Ruskin's  disciples  and  admirers, — those  who  acknow- 
ledge the  power  of  his  thought  in  everyday  life — will 
be  disappointed  to  find  nothing  very  new  or  original 
in   M.   De   La    Sizeranne's    picturesque    study  of  the 
Master,   but  it  will,    I   hope,   be   interesting  to   them 
as  well   as   to  others  to  note   the   impression   made 
upon  a  foreigner  by  a  personage  who,  not  to  mention 
that    he   is    among    the    greatest    of    our    stylists    in 
prose,  has  permanently  influenced  the  opinion  of  the 
English-speaking    people    in    matters    of  Art.       With 
all  the  keen   critical   feeling   of  his   race  M.   De  La 
Sizeranne  has,   I  think,  made  a  compact  and  concise 
statement  of  the  fundamental  ideas  of  Mr.  Ruskin's 
teaching,  and   I    shall  be  satisfied  if  my  translation 


82960 


vi  TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE 

gives  some  of  those,  who  have  neither  opportunity 
nor  leisure  to  study  the  writings  fully  themselves,  a 
definite  conception  of  the  doctrine  and  dogma  of  the 
author  of  Modern  Painters.  The  judgment  of  one 
outside  ourselves  is  valuable  when  we  are  anxious 
to  divine  the  charm  by  which  we  are  attracted : 
and  even  if  it  should  be  true  that  Ruskin  like 
Carlyle  wrote  for  an  epoch  and  a  generation  which 
is  rapidly  passing  away,  this  may  be  all  the  more 
reason  for  looking  at  his  works  from  the  standpoint 
of  one  who  came  under  the  spell  at  a  distance 
of  time  when  their  form,  colour,  and  perspective 
could  be  appreciated  as  a  whole  and  not  only  in 
parts.  Every  one  no  doubt  recognises  in  Ruskin  a 
worshipper  of  the  beautiful.  I  do  not  think,  how- 
ever, that  it  has  hitherto  been  generally  admitted  that 
his  Lectures  on  Political  Economy,  visionary  and 
impossible  as  they  appear  to  many,  are  the  logical 
outcome  of  his  Religion  of  Beauty,  and  surely  there 
are  already  signs  among  us  of  progress  on  the  lines 
he  has  persistently  advocated  for  so  many  years.  I 
have  been  asked  what  is  meant  by  the  Religion  of 
Beauty.  The  answer  will  be  found  in  these  pages. 
It  is  a  religion  that  should  appeal  alike  to  rich  and 
poor.  It  is  not  a  substitute  for  the  Christian  Faith, 
\     on  the  contrary  it  is  a  protest  against  the  religion  of 


TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE  vii 

Self,  of  Materialism,  and  of  Worldly  Advancement, 
and  it  is  but  a  branch  growing  out  of  the  Igdrasil  or 
World  Tree  of  the  religion  of  Christ.  It  teaches  that 
the  beautiful  in  Nature  is  precious  because  it  is  the 
expression  of  God's  Love  and  Power  on  earth.  It 
teaches  that  where  there  is  no  truth  there  can  be  no 
Art  and  no  life — and  for  the  work  of  daily  duty  its 
commandment  is  that  of  the  great  German  poet — 
Im  Ganzen,  Gtiten,  Schonen,  Resolut  zu  leben. 

M.    A.    A.   GALLOWAY. 


INTRODUCTION 

SOME  years  ago  I  was  at  Florence  on  the  7th  01 
March,  which  is  the  feast  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 
In  the  cloisters  of  Santa  Maria  Novella,  greatest 
of  all  Dominican  churches,  are  certain  frescoes  by 
Taddeo  Gaddi  and  Simone  Memmi,  representing  St. 
Thomas  in  triumph  surrounded  by  his  consistory  of 
the  seven  celestial  and  the  seven  terrestrial  sciences. 
What  better  day  then,  said  I,  to  try  and  attain  a 
sense  of  his  contribution  towards  the  schooling  of 
human  thought  ?  Moreover  the  sun  chanced  to  be 
shining  brilliantly  that  morning  on  the  domes  of  the 
"  city  of  lilies,"  and  sun  is  the  one  thing  needful  if 
all  the  several  faces  in  the  frescoes  are  to  be  dis- 
tinguished, whether  of  apostles  or  of  allegorical 
animals, — the  Lord's  hounds  tearing  the  wolves  of 
heresy, — or  of  wise  men  from  Boethius,  who  re- 
sembles a  leper,  back  even  to  Tubalcain,  like  nothing 
so  much  as  an  ourang-outang. 

Wishing  to  be  alone,  I  went  as  early  as  nine 
o'clock,  and  found  the  cloister  deserted.  The  fresh- 
ness of  the  morning  and  the  monastic  calm  of  the 
place  made  it  a  delicious  resort.  The  grass,  ever 
fading   yet    ever    springing,    gleamed    green    through 


x  INTRODUCTION 

the  old  fourteenth-century  arches.  The  sacristan, 
intent  equally  on  my  peace  and  his  own  pocket,  had 
closed  the  door  with  a  wealth  of  bolts.  Long  silences 
followed  the  occasional  clashing  of  the  bells.   .  .  . 

For  some  little  time  I  had  been  sauntering  along 
that  pavement  of  tombstones,  which  fringes  the 
CJiiostri  Verdi,  and  I  was  approaching  the  Spanish 
Chapel,  when  a  soft  sound,  rising  and  flowing,  fell 
upon  my  ear,  a  murmur  of  words — speaking,  reading 
— as  in  prayer.  Had  I  been  forestalled  ?  Suddenly 
in  the  luminous  shadow  I  perceived  outlines  of 
girlish  forms,  youthful  with  Giottesque  profiles,  wear- 
ing sailor  hats  and  little  white  veils,  and  all  carrying 
bunches  of  mimosa  in  their  hands.  They  were 
clustering  together  before  the  Triumph  of  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  and  one  of  them  was  reading: 

"  Optavi  et  datus  est  mihi  sensus, 
Invocavi  et  venit  in  me  spiritus  sapientiae, 
Et  praeposui  illam  regnis  et  sedibus." 

Then  the  voice  resumed  the  English  text : 

"  I  prayed  and  the  Spirit  of  Wisdom  came  upon 
me.  .  .  .  The  personal  power  of  Wisdom ;  the  ao<f>ia 
or  Santa  Sophia,  to  whom  the  first  great  Christian 
temple  was  dedicated.  The  higher  wisdom,  govern- 
ing by  her  presence,  all  earthly  conduct,  and  by  her 
teaching,  all  earthly  art,  Florence  tells  you,  she  ob- 
tained only  by  prayer." 

She  read  on  for  some  time,  passing  from  eloquent 
generalisations  on  the  necessity  of  discipline  in  human 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

thought  to  minutest  observations  on  the  fingers  or 
the  hair  of  this  or  that  personage  in  the  fresco, 
noting  where  they  were  retouched,  studying  the 
attitudes  and  the  draperies,  contrasting  the  calm  air 
and  dignity  of  the  figure  of  Rhetoric  with  the  extra- 
vagant gestures  of  the  common  people  of  Florence — 
"They  try  to  make  lips  of  their  fingers,"  insanely 
hoping  to  "  drag  by  vociferation  whatever  they  would 
have  out  of  man  and  God." 

The  audience  listened  intently,  forming  face  with 
the  precision  of  a  Prussian  platoon  towards  this  figure 
or  that,  as  the  small  red  and  gold  book  directed  them. 
At  times  the  voice  rose  even  to  invocation ;  the  muffled 
strains  of  an  organ  sounded  from  afar,  the  faint  per- 
fumes of  flowers  were  wafted  by  like  incense,  and, 
touched  with  shafts  of  sunlight,  the  golden-tipped 
mimosas  shone  like  tapers  in  their  midst.  I  observed 
that  the  pilgrims  had  stationed  themselves  on  the 
very  sepulchral  slab  of  those  Spanish  Ambassadors 
who  give  the  chapel  its  name ;  and  the  words  they 
were  reading  seemed  like  a  tuft  of  flowers  springing 
from  the  dust  of  the  past.  What  then  was  this  book  ? 
What  this  unknown  liturgy  ?  Who  the  priest  of  this 
Religion  of  Beauty  ?  The  sacristan,  returning  a 
moment,  muttered  a  name — RUSKIN. 

Another  year,  in  London,  after  attending  a  Con- 
gress of  Economists,  I  was  resting  in  one  of  those 
Gothic  drawing-rooms  where  sobriety  is  wed  to  com- 
fort, and  the  claims  of  taste  are  satisfied  without 
sacrifice  of  ease.       The  conversation   turned  on  the 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

transformation  wrought  in  everything  by  machinery, 
and  especially  in  textures  and  embroideries  which 
were  formerly  products  of  art,  the  work  of  thoughtful 
minds,  and  much  more  enduring  in  olden  times  when 
linen  descended  as  patrimony  from  generation  to 
generation.  The  machine-made  textures  of  to-day, 
it  was  observed,  do  not  last, — "  for  example,  such  as 
these  little  napkins,"  said  one  of  the  guests  (needless 
to  explain  we  were  at  tea.) — "  But,"  answered  our 
hostess,  "you  forget  that  this  is  Langdale  linen." — 
"And  my  coat,"  said  the  master  of  the  house,  "is 
cloth  made  by  the  St.  George's  Guild."  This  was 
accepted  as  conclusive. 

It  was  then  that  I  first  heard  of  a  pretty  little 
cottage  in  Westmoreland  where  the  thread  is  spun 
on  the  old  wheels  of  our  grandmothers,  and  with 
the  old  looms  woven  by  men  into  cloth.  This  hand- 
made fabric  costs  from  two  to  six  shillings  a  yard, 
and  the  money  produced  by  its  sale  is  paid  into  a 
bank,  and  the  profits  are  divided  among  the  workers 
at  the  end  of  the  year.  The  household  linen  was 
all  made  there ;  while  the  coat  of  my  host,  the  econo- 
mist, was  made  of  cloth  carded,  spun,  and  woven  at 
the  St.  George's  Mill  at  Laxey  in  the  Isle  of  Man. 
Only  the  natural  agency  of  water,  working  the  mill, 
assists  the  human  hand.  Moreover  the  colour  does 
not  fade,  for  it  is  undyed,  being  natural  to  the  black 
sheep  of  the  island.  Many  English  ladies  have  their 
stuffs  made  there,  for  they  are  very  durable,  and 
they  have  been  manufactured  without  the  smoke,  noise, 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

or  ugliness  of  machinery,  among  trees  and  green  fields, 
in  defiance  of  progress  and  of  all  the  social  and  in- 
dustrial movements  of  the  age.  And  when  I  asked 
who  was  the  founder  of  this  guild,  who  the  Titan  or 
madman  who  had  undertaken  thus  to  turn  the  century 
back  upon  itself,  I  received  in  answer  the  name  that  I 
had  heard  in  the  CJiiostri  Verdi  at  Florence — RUSKIN. 
Here  then  was  a  man,  at  our  very  doors,  just 
across  the  Channel,  who  held  such  empire  in  the 
British  mind  that  he  could  attune  it  to  the  ecstatic 
visions  of  the  Early  Masters,  and  impose  on  life, 
style,  economy,  and  even  dress,  ideas  that  were 
frankly  retrograde.  Fifty-four  years  ago  he  burst 
upon  the  world,  armed  with  a  book,  and  dashed 
into  a  conflict  which  speedily  made  him  famous ; 
and  since  that  epoch,  in  the  threefold  guise  of  writer, 
orator,  and  patron  of  village  industries,  he  has  stood 
forward  preaching  a  threefold  doctrine  of  aesthetics,  / 
morals,  and  social  reform,  or,  rather  let  us  say,  talk- 
ing at  random  over  every  subject  under  the  sun, 
while  his  words  have  been  collected  with  pious  care, 
like  drops  of  a  martyr's  blood,  by  admirers,  male 
and  female.  His  books,  printed  in  large  numbers 
notwithstanding  their  high  price,  diffused  his  ideas 
on  nature,  art,  and  life  throughout  Great  Britain, 
and  pirated  editions  sowed  the  seed  away  in  the 
far  West.  The  author's  profits  on  this  aesthetic 
venture  amounted  to  -£4000  a  year,  and  that  profit 
was  dedicated  to  promote  the  social  venture  of  which 
he  dreamed.      There  were  founded  Ruskin  Reading 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

Societies  in  London,  Birmingham,  Manchester,  Glas- 
gow, to  discuss  his  views,  a  journal  to  announce 
them,  a  special  press,  a  Ruskin  House  in  London 
to  spread  them  abroad.  At  the  same  time  artists 
occupied  themselves  in  engraving  his  drawings,  and 
writers  in  writing  his  life  though  he  was  yet  alive, 
in  expounding  his  doctrines  though  he  had  not 
done  writing  them,  and  in  making  selection  from  his 
works  of  Ruskiniana,  of  Birthday-books,  of  Guides 
to  Museums,  as  well  as  of  books  for  prize-givings. 
Already  the  railway  time-tables  for  the  Lake  District 
advertised  the  hotels  from  which  "  the  residence  of 
Professor  Ruskin "  could  be  seen  in  the  distance 
among  the  trees ;  while,  during  strikes,  passages 
from  the  works  of  the  great  aestheticist  were  thrown 
into  the  discussion.  Mr.  Frederick  Harrison  described 
him  only  the  other  day  as  "the  brightest  living 
genius,  the  most  inspiring  soul  still  extant  among 
us " ;  and  not  long  ago  the  Principal  of  a  college 
for  girls  declared  at  a  school  function  that  it  was 
the  writings  of  Ruskin  that  would  make  the  nine- 
teenth century  famous  to  posterity. 

Who  is  this  man?  What  is  his  work?  Apart 
from  the  merely  curious  interest  that  one  cannot  but 
feel,  answers  to  these  questions  will  be  imperative 
to  the  future  history  of  art.  I  set  myself,  therefore, 
to  probe  them  more  deeply  than  was  possible  by 
the  perusal  of  the  excellent  study  published  by  M. 
Milsand  thirty-five  years  ago,  at  a  time  when  Ruskin 
had  written  only  one  third  of  his  works,  lived  only 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

one  half  of  his  life  and  revealed  only  one  aspect  ot 
his  thought.  It  seemed  to  me  that  for  my  purpose 
I  ought  not  only  to  read  and  study  those,  who  knew 
him  best,  and  above  all  his  most  chosen  disciple 
Mr.  W.  G.  Collingwood,  but  more  than  that  I  must 
retrace  through  Europe  and  through  the  history  of 
"./Esthetic"  the  path  the  master  had  trod.  In 
Switzerland,  at  Florence,  at  Venice,  at  Amiens,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Rhine  or  of  the  Arno,  everywhere 
where  he  had  worked  I  too  worked  after  him,  some- 
times sketching  over  again  the  sketches  whence  he 
had  drawn  his  theories  and  his  examples,  waiting 
for  the  same  light  he  had  waited  for,  always  seeking, 
as  it  were,  on  the  eternal  monuments  the  fugitive 
shadows  of  his  thought.  Then  for  several  years  I 
delayed  to  write  until  his  system  dawned  upon  me 
no  longer  as  a  delicious  medley  but  as  a  harmony 
of  great  lines,  like  those  Alpine  mountains  which 
he  loved  so  well.  In  their  midst  all  is  but  chaos ; 
gradually,  as  we  recede,  they  blend  and  unite  till 
they  stand  on  the  horizon,  only  a  "  little  blue  film  " 
yet  "itself  a  world." 


CONTENTS 


l'AGE 

Translator's  Preface v 

Introduction ix 


PART  I.— HIS  PERSONALITY 

CHAP. 

I.  Contemplation 3 

II.  Action 24 

III.  Expression  , 42 


PART  II.— HIS  WORDS 

Introduction  .       .               69 

I.  Analysis 71 

II.  Imagery 90 

III.  Passion 109 

IV.  Modernity 129 

xvii 


xviii  CONTENTS 

PART  III.— HIS  ESTHETIC  AND 
SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

CHAP.  PAGE 

Introduction 143 

I.  Nature— §  1 146 

S  2 155 

§  3 168 

II.    Art—  §  1 178 

.    „       §  2 193 

.,      §  3 2I° 

„       §  4 221 

111.  Life— §  1 236 

§2 242 

§  3 259 

§  4 272 

Appendices 297 


PART    I 
HIS  PERSONALITY 


RUSK  IN 

PART    I 
HIS     PERSONALITY 

CHAPTER  I 

CONTEMPLATION 

THE  guardian  of  the  gates  of  Schaffhausen  was 
awakened  one  summer  night  in  1833  by  the  noise  of 
a  postchaise.  He  sulkily  opened  or  half  opened  the 
barriers  at  the  entreaty  of  the  belated  travellers,  and 
the  carriage  passed  through  in  such  haste  that  it 
smashed  one  of  its  lamps,  and  at  once  disappeared 
into  the  town.  When  it  reached  the  hotel  a  courier 
alighted,  and  with  him  an  English  gentleman  with  his 
wife,  a  little  girl,  a  boy  of  fourteen,  and  a  maid ;  and 
all  quickly  sought  their  rooms.  The  following  day 
was  Sunday,  and  they  would  have  to  be  up  in  the 
morning  for  Church. 

The  names  which  the  hotel-keeper  wrote  the  next 
day  on  his  list  would  have  revealed  nothing  to  any 


4  HIS    PERSONALITY 

one,  and  the  information  he  obtained  about  the  new 
arrivals  from  the  courier,  Salvador,  was  quite  com- 
monplace. If  he  had  been  told  that  the  gentleman 
in  question  was  Mr.  John  James  Ruskin,  who  had 
his  name  writ  fair  on  a  brass  plate  in  Billiter  Street 
as  the  head  of  the  firm  Ruskin,  Telford  &  Domecq, 
that  he  was  one  of  the  largest  sherry  importers  of 
his  day  and  among  the  most  scrupulous  merchants 
of  his  country,  that  the  lady  accompanying  him  was 
his  wife  nee  Miss  Margaret  Cox,  the  boy  his  only  son 
John,  and  the  little  girl,  Mary,  an  orphan  niece,  and 
that  they  all  were  Tory  and  Jacobite  in  politics  and 
Presbyterian  in  religion,  this  bare  statement  of  facts 
would  have  seemed  fraught  with  little  interest  for 
the  history  of  Art.  It  might  have  been  added  also 
that  the  family  was  somewhat  unsociable,  giving  itself 
up  entirely  to  the  contemplation  of  the  beauties  of 
Nature,  while  aesthetical  enthusiasm  was  its  principal 
characteristic. 

The  city  merchants  would  assuredly  have  been 
vastly  astonished  had  they  been  made  aware  that  Mr. 
John  James  Ruskin,  so  exact  in  his  counting-house, 
so  punctual  in  his  payments,  and  so  good  a  judge  of 
sherry,  cherished  the  aspirations  of  an  artist.  But  the 
fact  is,  that  within  his  own  doors  he  was  at  once  trans- 
formed into  an  enthusiastic  and  imaginative  being. 
He  would  rapidly  wash  in  a  water-colour,  or,  taking 
up  some  new  writing  of  Walter  Scott's,  or  some  old 
piece  of  Shakespeare,  would  read  it  aloud  to  his  wife 
and  son  in   a  rhythmic  and   impassioned  voice.     In 


I.  CONTEMPLATION  5 

bygone  years  night  had  often  found  him  stooping 
over  engravings  of  Prout  or  Turner,  or  with  maps  of 
Switzerland  or  Italy  open  under  the  lamp,  dreaming 
of  journeys  not  at  that  time  to  be  accomplished,  to 
the  lands  where  mountains  gleam  so  white  and  waves 
sleep  so  blue. 

When  Mrs.  Ruskin  came  on  the  scene  her  persua- 
sive eloquence  recalled  him  to  that  preoccupation  of 
moneymaking,  which  Englishmen  are  so  fain  to  call 
their  duty.  Mrs.  Ruskin  was  a  first  cousin  of  her 
husband,  and  by  four  years  his  senior.  Having 
known  her  from  childhood,  it  was  borne  in  on  him 
one  day  that  she  was  exactly  the  kind  of  wife  he 
needed.  He  told  her  so,  and  arranged  with  her  that 
they  should  postpone  their  marriage  until  the  family 
debts  were  paid,  the  business  well  established,  and  the 
horizon  free  from  clouds.  They  waited  nine  years. 
At  last  came  an  evening  when,  perceiving  that  he  had 
a  credit  balance  to  his  account,  Mr.  John  James 
Ruskin  listened  to  the  dictates  of  his  heart.  The 
young  people  were  married  after  their  supper,  and  so 
secretly  that  the  servants  discovered  it  only  the  next 
day  when  they  left  together  for  Edinburgh.  Such  a 
strange  blend  of  phlegm  and  sensibility — of  romantic 
fidelity  and  practical  common  sense — gave  Mr.  Ruskin 
his  distinct  individuality  among  his  fellow-merchants, 
and  enabled  him  to  save  the  honour  of  his  family 
by  paying  all  his  father's  debts,  and  to  bequeath 
to  his  son  at  the  same  time  two  hundred  thousand 
pounds    and    that   worship    of  Nature    which   was  to 


6  HIS    PERSONALITY 

become  the  most  marked  characteristic  of  the  great 
writer. 

To  the  child  that  Nature  was  revealed  only  on  rare 
occasions,  as  a  queen  appearing  on  high  days  and 
holidays.  He  used  to  see  her  either  when  visiting  his 
aunts  at  Croydon,  where  the  view  was  so  beautiful 
that  he  cried  out  to  his  astonished  mother  it  seemed 
as  if  his  eyes  were  coming  out  of  his  head, — or  at 
Perth,  where  the  gardens  stretching  down  to  the  river 
Tay  first  enchanted  his  view.  Then  the  black  curtain 
of  London  fog  fell  again  upon  these  visions.  But 
later,  when  his  parents  left  the  town  for  the  suburbs 
and  settled  on  the  edge  of  the  Surrey  slopes  at  Heme 
Hill,  the  beauty  of  inanimate  things  became  more 
familiar  to  him.  From  his  father's  windows  on  one 
side  he  could  see  a  rich  undulating  country  of  green 
meadows  and  trees,  with  houses  sprinkled  here  and 
there  in  the  foreground,  and  on  the  other  side  his  eye 
could  range  over  London  and  beyond  it  towards 
Windsor  and  Harrow.  The  simple  comfortable  house 
was  surrounded  by  a  garden  with  well-trimmed  lawns 
sloping  to  an  orchard  full  of  cherries  and  mulberries, 
"  decked  with  magical  splendour  of  abundant  fruit ; 
fresh  green,  soft  amber,  and  rough  bristled  crimson 
bending  the  spinous  branches;  clustered  pearl  and 
pendent  ruby  joyfully  discoverable  under  the  large 
leaves  that  looked  like  vine,"  altogether  a  delicious 
garden  which  seemed  a  terrestrial  paradise  to  the 
child.  "  All  the  fruit  was  forbidden,  and  there  were 
no  companionable  beasts."     His  instinctive  taste  for 


I.  CONTEMPLATION  7 

form  and  colour  was  no  longer  restricted  to  tapestry 
designs  and  constructions  in  brick.  "  In  the  garden 
when  the  weather  was  fine,  my  time  there  was  chiefly 
passed  in  the  same  kind  of  close  watching  of  the  ways 
of  plants.  I  had  not  the  smallest  taste  tor  growing 
them,  or  taking  care  of  them,  any  more  than  for  taking 
care  of  the  birds,  or  the  trees,  or  the  sky,  or  the  sea. 
My  whole  time  was  passed  in  staring  at  them,  or 
into  them.  In  no  morbid  curiosity,  but  in  admiring 
wonder,  I  pulled  every  flower  to  pieces  till  I  knew  all 
that  could  be  seen  of  it  with  a  child's  eye." 

As  shy  and  retiring  in  society  as  successful  in 
business,  Mr.  John  James  Ruskin  lived  much  alone, 
happy  in  the  companionship  of  the  romantic  and 
legendary  creations  of  his  favourite  authors.  His  wife, 
who  had  been  brought  up  amongst  people  inferior  to 
the  Ruskins,  was  not  at  home  amongst  her  new  con- 
nections. Too  intelligent  to  ignore  the  fact  and  too 
proud  to  submit  to  it,  she  determined  to  renounce  the 
world, — a  religious  and  devoted  mother  who  kept  the 
Christian  Treasury  on  her  table  and  the  hatred  of 
the  Pope  in  her  heart,  abhorring  the  theatre  and 
adoring  flowers,  uniting  the  spirit  of  Martha  to  that 
of  Mary,  indefatigable,  well  regulated,  living  only  for 
her  husband  and  her  son.  To  avoid  separation  from 
the  latter  during  his  university  career,  she  brought 
herself  to  live  a  stranger  in  Oxford,  watching  con- 
tinually to  save  him  from  all  pain,  even  should  she 
unman  him,  and  from  all  danger,  at  risk  of  taking 
from  him  the  power  to  avoid  it.     Each  day  with  order 


8  HIS    PERSONALITY 

and  regularity  she  gave  him  a  Bible  lesson,  and 
revealed  to  him  by  degrees  that  light  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  which  has  ever  shone  on  the  summits 
of  his  achievement.  The  child  had  not  a  conception 
of  what  care  was.  The  Ruskins  never  spent  more 
than  the  half  of  their  income,  and  were  free  from  all 
money  troubles.  Finding  all  their  joy  in  admiration, 
they  were  ignorant  of  the  pangs  of  jealousy  and 
ambition.  To  live  in  a  cottage  and  to  taste  the 
"healthy  delight  of  uncovetous  admiration"  in  visiting 
Warwick  Castle  was  a  greater  happiness  to  them  than 
"  to  live  in  Warwick  Castle  and  have  nothing  to 
be  astonished  at."  Their  even  temperaments  were 
warmed  to  enthusiasm  only  by  ideas  or  by  the  con- 
templation of  Nature.  "Never,"  says  their  son,  "had 
I  heard  my  father's  or  mother's  voice  once  raised  in 
any  question  with  each  other.  I  had  never  heard  a 
servant  scolded."  "  Under  such  gentle  discipline  there 
reigned  in  this  house  peace,  obedience,  and  faith." 

Shielded  from  all  external  trouble,  the  artistic  taste 
of  the  boy  was  refined  into  a  sort  of  ecstatic  habit 
which  was  encouraged  by  the  perpetual  novelty  of 
travel.  Every  year  Mr.  J.  J.  Ruskin  started  in  the 
month  of  May  on  a  business  tour.  His  wife,  who 
never  allowed  him  to  encounter  fatigue  alone,  went 
with  him  ;  little  John  was  seated  between  them  on  the 
portmanteau,  with  the  maid  in  the  dickey  behind  ;  and 
the  whole  family  posted  off.  Ever}'  evening,  when 
his  commercial  business  was  over,  Mr.  J.  J.  Ruskin 
took  his  son  out  to  see  the  ruins,  the  castles  or  the 


I.   CONTEMPLATION  9 

cathedrals  on  their  route.  They  read  poetry,  they 
made  drawings.  At  five  years  old,  John  visited  the 
Scottish  lakes ;  at  six  years  he  went  to  France,  and  at 
Paris  was  present  at  the  fetes  of  the  coronation  of 
Charles  X. ;  he  saw  the  field  of  Waterloo ;  and  then 
he  returned  to  England,  taking  notes  and  sketches. 
He  described  the  colleges  and  chapels  and  music  at 
Oxford,  the  tomb  of  Shakespeare,  and  a  pin  manu- 
factory at  Birmingham,  drew  sketches  of  Blenheim  or 
of  Warwick  Castle ;  and  thus  explored  the  world  in 
all  its  attractive  and  picturesque  variety,  at  an  age 
when  little  French  boys  worry  their  heads  over  the 
dead  names  on  their  maps.  Not  long  after  we  find 
him  writing  verses  comparing  Skiddaw  and  the 
Pyramids,  which  certainly  would  not  be  attributed  to 
an  ordinary  child  of  ten  years. 

"  The  touch  of  man 
Raised  pigmy  mountains,  but  gigantic  tombs. 
The  touch  of  Nature  raised  the  mountain's  brow 
But  made  no  tombs  at  all." 

At  Heme  Hill  he  passed  the  long  winter  months 
dreaming  over  Turner's  illustrations  to  Rogers'  Italy, 
and  a  violent  desire  took  possession  of  him  to  know 
in  what  aliquas  partes  materia  the  great  seer  had 
seen  his  vision.  In  tbe  valleys  of  Clifton  or  of 
Matlock  in  Derbyshire  he  made  collections  of  minerals, 
calculated  heights,  and  watched  reflections.  And  all 
that  he  perceived  with  a  mind  so  precocious  and  over- 
flowing, he  loved  with  a  heart  strangely  virgin  and 
void  ;  for  he  had  little  sentiment  for  his  family.     "  My 


io  HIS    PERSONALITY 

mother  herself,  finding  her  chief  personal  pleasure  in 
her  flowers,  was  often  planting  or  pruning  beside 
me,  at  least  if  I  chose  to  stay  beside  her.  .  .  .  Her  pre- 
sence was  no  restraint  to  me,  but  also  no  particular 
pleasure,  for,  from  having  always  been  left  so 
much  alone,  I  had  generally  my  own  affairs  to  see 
after."  Sixty  years  afterwards  he  sadly  exclaims,  "  I 
had  nothing  to  love.  My  parents  were  in  a  sort 
visible  powers  of  nature  to  me,  no  more  loved  than 
the  sun  and  the  moon."  And  as  a  child  he  knew  no 
one  else.  Even  when  travelling  the  Ruskins  lived 
apart  from  their  fellows  and  preferred  watching  the 
great  poet  Wordsworth  from  behind  the  pillar  of  a 
church,  to  asking  for  an  introduction.  "We  did  not 
travel  for  adventures,  nor  for  company,  but  to  see 
with  our  eyes,  and  to  measure  with  our  hearts." 
Their  mode  of  travelling  enabled  them  to  see  every- 
thing thoroughly,  and  their  ignorance  of  foreign  lan- 
guages prevented  them  from  regarding  the  people  from 
any  other  than  the  picturesque  point  of  view.  They 
found  a  peculiar  charm  in  the  very  fact  of  being 
unable  to  understand  the  speech  of  those  around 
them.  For  so  they  noted  each  gesture  but  for  its 
beauty,  each  voice  but  for  its  music,  and  neither  one 
nor  the  other  for  its  significance. 

Trained  in  this  special  manner,  all  the  child's 
faculties  tended  to  one  result — an  acute  sensibility, 
a  power  of  minute  analysis  of  landscape  and  figures. 
He  could  not  love  his  little  cousin  because  she  had 
ringlets,  which  are  not  in  accordance  with  true  taste. 


I.   CONTEMPLATION  n 

Should  he  be  taken  to  pay  a  visit,  he  would  give  no 
attention  to  the  guests,  but  think  of  nothing  but  the 
pictures  which  decorated  the  room.  Presently  at 
Oxford  he  could  not  bear  the  sight  of  certain  of  his 
tutors  and  comrades,  because  their  features  were  not 
strongly  enough  marked,  and  he  listened  only  to  such 
professors  as  were  endowed  with  some  resemblance 
to  the  "  Erasmus  "  of  Holbein  or  the  "  Melancthon  "  of 
Diirer.  With  a  talent  for  geometry,  that  science  of 
dimensions  that  can  be  seen  and  touched,  he  stopped 
short  on  the  threshold  of  algebra,  for  it  only  deals 
with  the  relations  of  abstract  terms.  His  estimate  of 
things  depended  entirely  on  their  relation  to  his  idea 
of  beauty  and  the  pain  or  pleasure  communicated  by 
them  to  the  eye;  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  any 
strong  aesthetical  impression  received  at  this  period 
of  his  youth,  would  determine  his  whole  life.  If  the 
full  glory  of  Nature  should  once  open  out  before  him, 
— not  in  her  grey  northern  raiment  but  in  the  blue 
blazonry  of  the  south,  not  with  painted  face  and  tired 
head  as  in  the  vicinity  of  large  towns,  but  in  all  the 
naked  majesty  of  her  first  savageness, — then  hers  he 
would  be  mind  and  heart  and  soul,  and  theirs  who,  like 
Turner,  should  have  revealed  her  to  him. 

This  ardour  without  an  assured  object,  this  hope 
for  one  knows  not  what,  this  flame  that  burns  without 
giving  light, — have  we  not  all  had  experience  of  these 
when  at  twenty  we  have  begun  to  ask  what  shall  be 
done  with  our  years  ?  This  was  the  state  of  young 
John  Ruskin's  mind  at  fourteen,  when  he  arrived  that 


12  HIS    PERSONALITY 

summer's  night  at  Schaffhausen,  with  his  father,  his 
mother,  and  his  cousin  Mary.  He  had  longed  eagerly 
for  this  journey.  At  Strasburg  it  had  been  a  question 
between  Basle  and  Schaffhausen.  "  Schaffhausen," 
he  cried.  "  My  impassioned  petition  at  last  carried 
it,  and  the  earliest  morning  saw  us  trolling  over  the 
bridge  of  boats  to  Kehl,  and  in  the  eastern  light  I  well 
remember  watching  the  line  of  the  Black  Forest  hills 
enlarge  and  rise,  as  we  crossed  the  plain  of  the  Rhine. 
'  Gates  of  the  Hills/  opening  for  me  a  new  life  to 
cease  no  more,  except  at  the  Gates  of  the  Hills  whence 
one  returns  not."  Let  us  now  hear  how  he  relates 
his  impressions  of  Eternal  Beauty.  It  seems  as  though 
we  hear  the  tremor  in  his  voice  even  after  fifty  years. 

"  It  was  past  midnight  when  we  reached  the  closed 
gates.  None  of  us  seemed  to  have  thought  the  Alps 
would  have  been  visible  without  profane  exertion  in 
climbing  hills.  We  dined  at  four  as  usual,  and  the 
evening  being  entirely  fine,  went  out  to  walk,  all  of 
us — my  father  and  mother  and  Mary  and  I.  We  must 
have  still  spent  some  time  in  town-seeing,  for  it  was 
drawing  towards  sunset  when  we  got  up  to  some  sort 
of  garden  promenade — west  of  the  town  I  believe,  and 
high  above  the  Rhine,  so  as  to  command  the  open 
country  across  it  to  the  south  and  west.  At  which 
open  country  of  low  undulation,  far  into  blue,  gazing 
as  at  one  of  our  own  distances  from  Malvern  of 
Worcestershire,  or  Dorking  of  Kent  —  suddenly — 
behold — beyond !  There  was  no  thought  in  any 
of  us    for   a   moment    of  their  being   clouds.      They 


I.   CONTEMPLATION  13 

were  clear  as  crystal,  sharp  on  the  pure  horizon 
sky,  and  already  tinged  with  rose  by  the  sinking 
sun.  Infinitely  beyond  all  that  we  had  ever  thought 
or  dreamed — the  seen  walls  of  lost  Eden  could  not 
have  been  more  beautiful  to  us;  not  more  awful, 
round  heaven,  the  sacred  walls  of  Death.  Thus  in 
perfect  health  of  life  and  fire  of  heart,  not  wanting 
to  be  anything  but  the  boy  I  was,  not  wanting  to  have 
anything  more  than  I  had;  knowing  of  sorrow  only 
just  so  much  as  to  make  life  serious  to  me,  not  enough 
to  slacken  in  the  least  its  sinews ;  and  with  so  much 
of  science  mixed  with  feeling  as  to  make  the  sight  01 
the  Alps  not  only  the  revelation  of  the  beauty  of  the 
earth,  but  the  opening  of  the  first  page  of  its  volume, 
I  went  down  that  evening  from  the  garden-terrace  of 
Schaffhausen  with  my  destiny  fixed  in  all  of  it  that 
was  to  be  sacred  and  useful.  To  that  terrace,  and 
the  shore  of  the  lake  of  Geneva,  my  heart  and  faith 
return  to  this  day,  in  every  impulse  that  is  yet  nobly 
alive  in  them,  and  every  thought  that  has  in  it  help 
or  peace." 

From  that  moment  the  contemplation  of  Nature  was  / 
to  absorb  his  whole  life.  It  would  be  no  longer  a 
distraction,  a  flirtation  with  the  vague  and  marvellous, 
but  a  vocation,  a  progress  towards  the  attainment  of 
the  ideal.  All  his  first  essays,  written  between  the 
ages  of  fifteen  and  twenty,  in  the  scientific  journal 
of  the  time,  the  Magazine  of  Natural  History,  on 
the  causes  of  the  colour  of  the  Rhine  water,  on  the 
stratification   of  Mont    Blanc,  on   the  convergence  of 


14  HIS    PERSONALITY 

perpendicular  lines,  or  on  meteorology,  are  signed 
Kata  Phusin  (according  to  Nature).  The  history  of 
Ruskin's  career  is  the  history  of  his  relations  with 
Nature,  and  of  the  journeys  which  year  by  year  he 
undertook  in  the  company  of  his  parents  during  two- 
thirds  of  his  lifetime,  and,  when  they  were  dead, 
alone.  He  does  not  have  recourse  to  Nature  as  a 
refuge  from  weariness  and  disenchantment,  or  as  a 
distraction  for  weary  hours,  but  he  goes  in  the  full 
force  of  his  age  as  to  a  goddess  who  gives  joy  to 
youth.  She  is  not  only  the  consoler  in  love,  she  is 
his  love  itself. 

"  I  had  a  pleasure,  as  early  as  I  can  remember,  and 
continuing  till  I  was  eighteen  or  twenty,  infinitely 
greater  than  any  which  has  since  been  possible  to 
me  in  anything ;  comparable  for  intensity  only  to 
the  joy  of  a  lover  in  being  near  a  noble  and  kind 
mistress,  but  no  more  explicable  or  definable  than 
that  feeling  of  love  itself.  I  never  thought  of  Nature 
as  God's  work,  but  as  a  separate  fact  of  existence. 
This  sentiment  was,  according  to  its  strength,  in- 
consistent with  every  evil  feeling,  with  spite,  anger, 
covetousness,  discontent,  and  every  other  hateful 
passion,  but  would  associate  itself  deeply  with  every 
just  and  noble  sorrow,  joy,  or  affection. 

"  Although  there  was  no  definite  religious  sentiment 
mingled  with  it,  there  was  a  continual  perception  of 
sanctity  in  the  whole  of  Nature  from  the  slightest 
thing  to  the  vastest ;  an  instinctive  awe,  mingled  with 
delight ;  an  indefinable  thrill,  such  as  we  sometimes 


I.  CONTEMPLATION  15 

imagine  to  indicate  the  presence  of  a  disembodied  spirit. 
I  could  only  feel  this  perfectly  when  I  was  alone ;  and 
then  it  would  often  make  me  shiver  from  head  to  foot 
with  the  joy  and  fear  of  it,  when  after  being  some  time 
away  from  the  hills,  I  first  got  to  the  shore  of  a 
mountain  river,  where  the  brown  water  circled  among 
the  pebbles,  or  when  I  saw  the  first  swell  of  distant 
land  against  the  sunset,  or  the  first  low  broken  wall, 
covered  with  mountain  moss.  I  cannot  in  the  least 
describe  the  feeling;  but  I  do  not  think  this  is  my 
fault,  nor  that  of  the  English  language,  for  I  am  afraid 
no  feeling  is  describable.  If  we  had  to  explain  even 
the  sense  of  bodily  hunger  to  a  person  who  had  never 
felt  it,  we  should  be  hard  put  to  it  for  words ;  and  this 
joy  in  nature  seemed  to  me  to  come  of  a  sort  of  heart- 
hunger,  satisfied  with  the  presence  of  a  great  and  holy 
Spirit.  .  .  .  The  feeling  cannot  be  described  by  any 
of  us  that  have  it.  Wordsworth's  '  haunted  me  like 
a  passion '  is  no  description  of  it,  for  it  is  not  like, 
but  is,  a  passion  ;  the  point  is  to  define  how  it  differs 
from  other  passions,  what  sort  of  human,  pre-emi- 
nently human  feeling  it  is  that  loves  a  stone  for  a 
stone's  sake  and  a  cloud  for  a  cloud's.  A  monkey 
loves  a  monkey  for  a  monkey's  sake,  and  a  nut  for 
the  kernel's,  but  not  a  stone  for  a  stone's.  I  took 
stones  for  bread." 

To  examine  these  stones  more  closely,  he  passed 
long  months  in  Italy  or  in  Switzerland.  He  would 
have  liked  to  establish  his  home  at  Chamounix,  above 
the  Chalet  of  Blaitiere,  but  the  rising  flood  of  tourists 


16  HIS    PERSONALITY 

chased  him  away.  He  then  proposed  to  buy  from  the 
Commune  of  Bonneville  the  summit  of  the  Brezon,  but 
the  peasants  of  the  place,  astounded  at  the  idea  of  a 
purchaser  for  barren  rocks  and  goat  pasture,  suspected 
that  the  milord  had  divined  the  existence  of  some 
treasure,  and  discouraged  him  by  their  excessive 
demands.  He  consoled  himself  by  changing  his  sky 
but  not  his  love.  "  A  study  in  the  rose-garden  of  San 
Miniato  and  in  the  cypress  avenue  of  Porta  Romana, 
remain  to  me,  for  memorials  of  perhaps  the  best  days 
of  early  life." 

For  long  this  passion  preserved  him  from  all  others, 
and  when  those  others  came  it  kept  him  sane.  Until 
he  was  seventeen  the  intense  unremitting  application 
of  mind  and  heart  towards  the  Beautiful  had  preserved 
him  from  the  seduction  of  what  the  world  mostly  means 
by  Beauty.  This  romanticism  of  the  Lake  School 
however,  which  Englishmen  either  have  pre-eminently 
or  not  at  all,  is  very  apt  to  develop  into  a  disease ; 
and  the  day  that  the  young  anchorite  of  Heme  Hill 
raised  his  head  from  his  books  and  saw  before  him 
the  face  of  a  young  girl,  smiling  in  the  first  blush  of 
sixteen  years,  he  fell  desperately  in  love.  She  was  a 
daughter  of  his  father's  partner,  M.  Domecq,  called 
Adele ;  and  this  name  became  familiar  to  the  readers 
of  Friendship 's  Offering,  wherein  the  young  man 
published  verses  which  he  addressed  to  all  the  world, 
not  venturing  to  address  them  to  the  only  reader  for 
whom  he  cared.  When  told  of  the  passion  of  this 
awkward  young  geologist,  this  timorous  troubadour, 


I.  CONTEMPLATION  17 

the  young  woman  only  laughed  aloud.  "  On  any 
blessed  occasion  of  tete-a-tete  I  endeavoured  to  enter- 
tain my  Spanish-born,  Paris-bred,  and  Catholic-hearted 
mistress  with  my  own  views  upon  the  subject  of  the 
Spanish  Armada,  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  and  the 
doctrine  of  Transubstantiation,"  says  Ruskin  in  his 
Prceterita.  Mrs.  Ruskin  was  indignant  that  her  son, 
a  sound  and  instructed  Tory,  of  the  straitest  sect  of 
Georgian  evangelism,  should  love  a  Frenchwoman,  and 
still  worse  a  Catholic ;  and,  wounded  in  all  her  deepest 
sentiments  and  traditions  by  what  seemed  to  her  a 
monstrous  affection,  she  obstinately  opposed  all  idea  of 
the  marriage.  The  hopeless  passion  however  lasted 
four  years,  years  that  tried  terribly  the  frail  organism 
of  the  enthusiastic  thinker.  Expecting  to  die  of  love, 
he  wrote  some  lines,  pathetic  enough,  and  called  them 
"  The  Broken  Chain."  But  we  do  not  die  of  love  ; 
broken  chains  are  forged  anew,  and  it  is  perhaps  the 
most  melancholy  part  of  such  sorrows  that  they  prove 
so  passing.  One  fine  day  it  was  announced  that 
Adele  had  married,  and  the  young  man  was  taken 
away  across  Europe  in  the  hope  that  he  would  leave 
by  its  highways  some  of  his  painful  memories,  and 
something  of  the  image  that  he  carried  in  his  heart. 
He  carried  them  in  turn  to  the  banks  of  Loire,  into 
the  mountains  of  Auvergne,  and  to  the  galleries  of 
Florence  and  Rome.  Each  site  he  visited  was  like  a 
picture  deprived  of  the  one  figure  which  animated  it, 
and  in  each  smiling  face,  among  the  thousands  of 
golden  frames,  he  was  seeking  the  reflection  of  other 


1 8  HIS    PERSONALITY 

features,  possibly  less  beautiful,  but  more  adored.  At 
last,  when  again  he  saw  the  Alps,  he  seemed  to  take 
on  new  life.  "  It  was  not  only  the  air  of  the  Alps 
braced  him,"  says  Mr.  Collingwood,  "but  the  spirit  of 
mountain-worship  stirred  him  as  nothing  else  would." 
He  has  himself  related  in  his  Prceterita  how  a  year 
later  he  was  cured  by  the  contemplation  of  Nature. 
At  Fontainebleau,  one  day,  ill  and  feverish,  he  made 
his  way  painfully  to  the  Forest,  and  stretching  himself 
at  the  roadside,  under  some  young  trees,  tried  to  sleep. 
"The  branches  against  the  blue  sky  began  to  interest 
me,  motionless  as  the  branches  of  the  tree  of  Jesse  on 
a  painted  window."  And  he  realised  that  his  death 
was  not  to  be  that  day,  and  began  to  draw  with  care  a 
little  aspen-tree  which  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  road. 
Yet  he  found  nothing  at  Fontainebleau  worth  seeing. 
The  "  hideous  rocks  "  of  Evelyn  were  not  ugly  enough 
to  cause  the  least  emotion,  nor  of  value  but  as  specimens 
to  carry  away,  had  they  been  worth  the  transport. 

"And  to-day  I  missed  rocks,  palace,  and  fountain 
all  alike,  and  found  myself  lying  on  the  bank  of  a 
cart-road  in  the  sand,  with  no  prospect  whatever  but 
that  small  aspen-tree  against  the  blue  sky.  Languidly, 
but  not  idly,  I  began  to  draw  it ;  and  as  I  drew,  the 
languor  passed  away ;  the  beautiful  lines  insisted  on 
being  traced,  without  weariness.  More  and  more 
beautiful  they  became,  as  each  rose  out  of  the  rest, 
and  took  its  place  in  the  air.  With  wonder  increasing 
every  instant,  I  saw  that  they  composed  themselves 
by  finer  laws  than  any  known  of  men.     At  last  the 


I.  CONTEMPLATION  19 

tree  was   there,  and   everything  that   I    had   thought 
before  about  trees,  nowhere." 

Like  all  great  passions  this  love  of  Nature,  which 
filled  Ruskin's  life  with  great  joys,  added  to  these  also 
sorrows  unknown  to  others.  When  the  prospect  is 
framed  no  longer  by  the  accustomed  flowers  of  his 
youth  he  is  miserable.  "  Scarce  all  the  hyacinths 
and  heath  of  Brantwood  redeem  the  loss  of  these  to 
me,  and  when  the  summer  winds  have  wrecked  the 
wreaths  of  our  wild  roses,  I  am  apt  to  think  sorrow- 
fully of  the  trailings  and  climbings  of  deep  purple 
convolvulus  which  bloomed  full  every  autumn  morning 
round  the  trunks  of  the  apple-trees  in  the  kitchen 
garden."  If,  returning  to  a  favourite  landscape,  he 
finds  it  changed  and  disfigured  by  increased  facili- 
ties of  locomotion,  by  a  port  or  a  railroad,  by  such 
modern  improvements  as  a  tea-garden  or  an  hotel, 
it  is  an  outrage  on  his  Best  Beloved. 

"  You  have  despised  nature ;  that  is  to  say,  all  the 
deep  and  sacred  sensations  of  natural  scenery.  The 
French  revolutionists  made  stables  of  the  cathedrals  of 
France ;  you  have  made  racecourses  of  the  cathedrals 
of  the  earth.  Your  one  conception  of  pleasure  is  to 
drive  in  railroad  carriages  round  their  aisles,  and 
eat  off  their  altars.  You  have  put  a  railroad  bridge 
over  the  falls  of  Schaffhausen.  You  have  tunnelled 
the  cliffs  of  Lucerne  by  Tell's  chapel  ;  you  have  de- 
stroyed the  Clarens  shore  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva ; 
there  is  not  a  quiet  valley  in  England  that  you  have 
not  filled  with  bellowing  fire." 


20  HIS    PERSONALITY 

Indeed  if  the  unhappy  aestheticist  wished  to  experi- 
ence over  again  the  impressions  of  his  youth,  and 
wandered  to  the  slopes  of  Heme  Hill,  where  he 
dreamed  his  first  dreams,  he  no  longer  recognised 
anything  around  him. 

"  The  view  from  the  bridge  on  both  sides  was, 
before  railroads  came,  entirely  lovely;  westward  at 
evening,  almost  sublime,  over  softly  wreathing  dis- 
tances of  domestic  wood ; — but  the  tops  of  twenty 
squares  miles  of  politely  inhabited  groves.  On  the 
other  side,  east  and  south,  the  Norwood  hills,  partly 
rough  with  furze,  partly  wooded  with  birch  and  oak, 
partly  in  pure  green  bramble  copse,  and  rather  steep 
pasture  rose  with  the  promise  of  all  the  rustic  loveli- 
ness of  Surrey  and  Kent  in  them,  and  with  so  much  of 
space  and  height  in  their  sweep,  as  gave  them  some 
fellowship  with  hills  of  true  hill-districts.  Fellowship 
now  inconceivable,  for  the  Crystal  Palace,  without 
ever  itself  attaining  any  true  aspect  of  size,  and  pos- 
sessing no  more  sublimity  than  a  cucumber -frame 
between  two  chimneys,  yet  by  its  stupidity  of  hollow 
bulk,  dwarfs  the  hills  at  once ;  so  that  now  one 
thinks  of  them  no  more  but  as  three  long  lumps  of 
clay,  on  lease  for  building." 

If  he  wishes  to  follow  the  quiet  pathway  where  he 
composed  his  Modern  Painters — a  pathway  running  by 
a  field  where  the  cows  used  to  browse,  and  so  warm 
that  invalids  sought  refuge  there  even  in  March,  when 
all  other  walks  would  have  been  death — he  finds  it  a 
street. 


I.   CONTEMPLATION  21 

"  Since  I  last  composed  or  meditated  there,  various 
improvements  have  taken  place;  first  the  neighbour- 
hood wanted  a  new  church,  and  built  a  meagre  Gothic 
one  with  a  useless  spire,  for  the  fashion  of  the  thing, 
at  the  side  of  the  field ;  then  they  built  a  parsonage 
behind  it,  the  two  stopping  out  half  the  view  in  that 
direction.  Then  the  Crystal  Palace  came,  for  ever 
spoiling  the  view  through  all  its  compass,  and  bringing 
every  show-day  from  London  a  flood  of  pedestrians 
down  the  footpath,  who  left  it  filthy  with  cigar-ashes 
for  the  rest  of  the  week :  then  the  railroads  came, 
and  expatiating  roughs  by  every  excursion  train,  who 
knocked  the  palings  about,  roared  at  the  cows,  and 
tore  down  what  branches  of  blossom  they  could  reach 
over  the  palings  on  the  enclosed  side.  Then  the 
residents  on  the  enclosed  side  built  a  brick  wall  to 
defend  themselves.  Then  the  path  got  to  be  insuffer- 
ably hot  as  well  as  dirty,  and  was  gradually  aban- 
doned to  the  roughs,  with  a  policeman  on  watch  at 
the  bottom.  Finally,  this  year,  a  six-foot  high  close 
paling  has  been  put  down  the  other  side  of  it,  and 
the  processional  excursionist  has  the  liberty  of  ob- 
taining what  notion  of  the  country  air  and  prospect 
he  may  between  the  wall  and  that,  with  one  bad 
cigar  before  him,  another  behind  him,  and  another 
in  his  mouth." 

When  Nature  herself  changes,  he  complains  more 
gently,  but  still  as  if  of  infidelity.  "  Yes,"  he  writes 
from  England  to  a  friend  who  is  in  the  Alps, 
"Chamounix  is  as  a  desolated  home  to  me.     I  shall 


22  HIS    PERSONALITY 

never  I  believe  be  there  more :  I  could  escape  the 
riffraff  in  winter  and  early  spring ;  but  that  the 
glaciers  should  have  betrayed  me,  and  their  old  ways 
know  them  no  more,  is  too  much.  Please  give  my 
love  to  the  big  stone  under  the  Breven,  a  quarter  01 
a  mile  above  the  village,  unless  they've  blasted  it  up 
for  hotels."  He  returned  all  the  same  to  the  Alps  in 
1882.  "I  saw  Mont  Blanc  again  to-day,  unseen  since 
1877;  and  was  very  thankful.  It  is  a  sight  that 
always  redeems  me  to  what  I  am  capable  of  at  my 
poor  little  best,  and  to  what  loves  and  memories  are 
most  precious  to  me." 

This  mystic  reverie  of  contemplation,  rapture,  and 
ecstasy  whether  of  joy  or  sorrow,  is  the  principal  feature 
/  in  the  individuality  of  Ruskin.  Once  immersed  in  it 
nothing  rouses  him.  Events  take  place  around  him 
without  his  giving  them  so  much  as  a  thought.  Some- 
times he  has  passed  weeks  without  so  much  as  knowing 
what  agitated  his  country.  Khartoum  fell  with  the 
heroic  Gordon ;  the  news  had  not  reached  him,  and 
when  the  Soudan  was  mentioned,  he  thought  of  the 
figure  painted  by  Giotto  at  Santa  Croce,  to  face  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  and  asked  curiously,  "  But  who 
is  the  Soldan  of  to-day  ?  "  Even  family  events  did  not 
seem  to  deserve  attention.  Whilst  in  the  Alps  he 
heard  of  the  death  of  his  cousin  Mary,  the  companion 
of  his  youth  and  of  his  early  travels,  but  he  did  not 
pause  in  his  endeavour  to  reproduce  the  effect  of 
sunrise  on  Montanvert,  and  the  "aerial  quality  of 
Aiguilles."     Even  in  his  old  age  he  remains  ever  the 


I.  CONTEMPLATION  23 

same — the  boy  his  mother  soothed  in  childish  illness 
by  bidding  him  think  of  the  sky  and  seas  of  Dover. 
The  close  of  Prceterita  reveals  no  melancholy  echo 
of  what  the  aged  Petrarch  described  as  "  the  super- 
fluous cares,  the  futile  hopes  and  the  unlooked-for 
events,"  which  had  agitated  him  during  his  life  on 
earth.  No  trace  of  this — but  a  last  note  on  the  infinite 
and  marvellous  forms  assumed  by  the  "  upper  cirri  " 
of  the  sky  in  the  pure  air  of  Kent  and  Picardy  when 
not  "  disturbed  by  tornado  nor  mingled  with  volcanic 
exhalation,"  and  a  thrill  of  joy  in  the  thought  that 
the  clouds  which  float  over  the  English  coasts  are  as 
full  of  beauty  as  those  which  hover  round  the  Alps. 
And  in  those  final  pages  where  speaking  of  himself 
he  might  have  betrayed  or  grieved  over  the  secret 
dramas  of  his  life,  the  great  enthusiast  does  not  seem 
to  avert  his  gaze  for  an  instant  from  the  radiant 
horizons  of  Eternal  Nature,  the  sum  of  all  he  has 
loved  on  earth. 


CHAPTER  II 

ACTION 

THIS  dreamer  is  also  a  man  of  action.  Like  those 
pious  cavaliers,  depicted  by  the  Early  Italian  Masters, 
though  Ruskin  holds  a  flower,  he  has  a  sword  at 
his  side;  and  this  feature  distinguishes  him  clearly 
from  the  art-critics  or  the  poets  of  the  Lake  school, 
who  for  the  most  part  were  satisfied  to  pass  com- 
ments upon  pictures,  or  encomiums  upon  Nature, 
without  a  thought  of  bettering  the  one,  or  champion- 
ing the  other.  Such  was  not  the  faith  that  was  in 
Ruskin ;  like  a  soldier  who  fires  a  shot  from  afar, 
he  projected  an  idea  in  a  pamphlet  or  a  book,  and 
forthwith  plunged  into  the  thick  of  the  fray  to  sup- 
port it  with  his  own  person,  and,  as  it  were,  to 
grapple  with  the  realities  of  things. 

For  example,  he  wrote  that  the  taste  for  Art  must 
be  spread  among  the  masses.  No  one  would  listen 
to  him.  So  he  determined  to  give  drawing-lessons 
himself  in  the  evening  to  an  adult  school,  and  for 
four  years,  from  1854  to  1858,  with  Rossetti  to  teach 
the  figure-drawing,  Ruskin  subjected  himself  to  the 
task  of  rekindling  fading  zeal  and  guiding  incapable 
hands    in   the   arts   of   landscape    sketching   and    of 


II.  ACTION  25 

decoration.  In  1876  he  founded  with  his  own  and  his 
friends'  money  a  Museum  of  Art  for  Sheffield,  the 
chosen  city  of  artisans  and  cutlery,  and  filled  it  with 
delicate  and  carefully  chosen  exhibits,  amongst  others 
a  picture  by  Verrochio,  who  was  himself  a  worker  in 
iron.  He  established  his  museum  in  a  cottage  situated 
on  a  hill  among  green  fields,  away  from  the  centre  of 
industry.  The  valley  of  the  Don  with  the  woods  of 
Wharnecliffe  Crags  opened  below  the  windows,  and 
invited  the  eye  to  roam  from  illuminated  missals  of 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  to  a  distance 
gleaming  in  golden  sun, — from  show-cases,  studded 
with  onyx,  various  crystals,  amethysts,  displaying  the 
beautiful  colours  which  enrich  the  earth,  to  coloured 
plates  reproducing  the  birds  of  all  countries,  which 
are  the  life  of  the  sky.  By  pictures  on  the  walls, 
recalling  the  most  beautiful  buildings  of  the  world 
(among  others  St.  Mark's  of  Venice),  the  visitors 
J  were  transported  to  an  ideal  country,  and  might 
forget  for  a  moment  the  gloomy  frontages  and  smoky 
chimneys  of  Sheffield.  Later  the  collection  was 
moved  into  the  town  itself,  and  the  Ruskin  Museum 
for  Working  Men  is  now  to  be  found  in  Meersbrook 
Park,  in  a  house  presented  by  the  Municipality. 

In  like  manner  when  Ruskin  was  chosen  in  1869 
to  occupy  the  Slade  Professorship  at  Oxford,  he  felt 
that  he  could  not  lecture  profitably  on  painting  with- 
out showing  pictures,  or  on  architecture  without  ex- 
hibiting architectural  designs,  to  support  his  theses 
and  enrich  his  arguments.     So  he  added  to  the  Slade 


26  HIS    PERSONALITY 

Collection  a  School  of  Drawing,  and  a  series  of  ori- 
ginal drawings,  from  Tintoret  to  Burne-Jones,  which 
could  be  copied,  and  specimens  by  his  own  hand 
after  the  Old  Masters,  which  might  be  studied.  He 
organised  this  collection  in  1872,  in  the  Oxford 
Galleries  which  face  towards  Beaumont  Street,  and 
gave  a  donation  of  ^"5600  for  the  maintenance  of 
the  school  and  the  salary  of  the  professor  who  was 
to  teach  there.  For  thirteen  years  he  devoted  him- 
self to  promoting  the  worship  of  the  Beautiful  in 
the  intellectual  sanctuary  of  Great  Britain,  until  on 
a  fatal  day  the  University  authorities  sanctioned 
vivisection  in  their  midst  in  spite  of  his  opposition. 
He  could  not  tolerate  this  cruel  and  hideous  practice ; 
useless,  he  said,  to  science,  since  learned  men  had 
for  ages  done  without  it ;  useless  to  art,  since  the 
Greek  sculptors  never  studied  anatomy ;  and  he  nobly 
resigned  his  professorship.  But  the  Museum  remains. 
A  few  undergraduates  and  many  young  women  profit 
daily  by  the  Ruskin  teaching.  The  materials  are 
admirably  arranged  for  the  education  of  the  eye  and 
mind,  and  the  drawings,  ingeniously  enclosed  in 
mahogany  cabinets  with  ivory  labels,  are  at  the  ser- 
vice of  all  pupils.  Oxford  is  now  a  centre  of  art, 
thanks  to  her  graduate  who  signed  his  name  to 
Modern  Painters. 

But  what  avail  a  few  examples  of  plastic  beauty  in 
academies,  if  the  whole  world  is  growing  ugly,  and 
the  folk  from  the  country,  abandoning  that  healthy 
toil  which  develops  their  muscles  and  deepens  their 


II.  ACTION  27 

ruddy  tints,  crowd  together  in  towns  and  enervate 
themselves  by  guiding  machines  until  they  become 
machines  themselves  moving  mechanically  to  the  hand 
of  a  master  ?  What  avails  it  to  collect  in  museums 
pale  reflections  of  fair  landscapes  while  industrial 
buildings  and  factories,  which  wither  the  grass  on 
the  earth  and  spread  a  pall  of  smoke  across  the  sky, 
destroy  Nature's  own  more  beautiful  originals  ?  The 
amateur — the  aesthete — is  content  to  worship  the 
Beautiful  in  museums  and  particular  churches  where 
none  but  the  converted  congregate ;  but  ugliness  must 
be  attacked  and  wrestled  with  in  the  use  of  every 
day,  and  having  exiled  it  from  our  dreams,  we  must 
drive  it  from  our  waking  life. 

"We  will  try,"  says  Ruskin,  "to  take  some  small 
piece  of  English  ground,  beautiful,  peaceful,  and 
fruitful.  We  will  have  no  steam  engines  upon  it, 
and  no  railroads;  we  will  have  no  untended  or  un- 
thought-of  creatures  upon  it ;  none  wretched,  but  the 
sick ;  none  idle,  but  the  dead.  We  will  have  no 
liberty  upon  it,  but  instant  obedience  to  known  law, 
and  appointed  persons ;  no  equality  upon  it ;  but 
recognition  of  every  betterness  we  can  find,  and 
reprobation  of  every  worseness.  When  we  want  to 
go  anywhere,  we  will  go  there  quietly  and  safely,  not 
at  forty  miles  an  hour  in  the  risk  of  our  lives ;  when 
we  want  to  carry  anything  anywhere,  we  will  carry 
it  either  on  the  backs  of  beasts,  or  on  our  own,  or  in 
carts,  or  boats ;  we  will  have  plenty  of  flowers  and 
vegetables  in  our  gardens,  plenty  of  corn  and  grass  in 


28  HIS    PERSONALITY 

our  fields — and  few  bricks.  We  will  have  some  music 
and  poetry ;  the  children  shall  learn  to  dance  to  it 
and  sing  it ; — perhaps  some  of  the  old  people  in  time 
may  also.  .  .  .  Little  by  little,  some  higher  art  and 
imagination  may  manifest  themselves  among  us;  and 
feeble  rays  of  science  may  dawn  for  us.  Botany, 
though  too  dull  to  dispute  the  existence  of  flowers ; 
and  history,  though  too  simple  to  question  the  nativity 
of  men ;  nay — even  perhaps  an  uncalculating  and 
uncovetous  wisdom,  as  of  rude  Magi,  presenting,  at 
such  nativity,  gifts  of  gold  and  frankincense." 

It  was  in  May  1871,  during  the  days  of  the 
Commune,  that  Ruskin  dreamed  this  dream.  Some- 
time afterwards,  with  some  idea  of  realising  it,  he 
founded  the  St.  George's  Guild.1  The  experiment  failed, 
as  socialistic  experiments  always  do  in  simple  agri- 
culture. A  farm  of  eight  or  nine  acres  was  indeed 
purchased  near  Totley  for  ,£2000,  and  other  pos- 
sessors of  barren  pastures  or  of  uncultivated  and 
useless  rocks  promptly  welcomed  an  opportunity  or 
disposing  of  them  to  promote  the  good  of  the  greatest 
number.  Thus  the  association  soon  had  lands  at 
Barmouth,  at  Bewdley  in  Worcestershire,  and  other 
places.  When,  however,  it  was  discovered  that  no 
member  of  the  Guild  understood  agriculture,  and 
that  it  would  be  vain  even  for  one  who  knew  all  the 
secrets  of  Proserpina  to  found  an  agricultural  colony 

1  This  account  of  the  foundation  of  St.  George's  Guild  is  somewhat 
too  picturesquely  described,  and  must  not  be  taken  as  a  statement 
of  literal  facts.  See  Fors  Clavigera,  Letter  52,  and  Appendix. — 
Editor's  Note. 


II.  ACTION  29 

if  he  had  not  put  hand  to  plough,  Ruskin  turned  to 
the  communists  and  sought  their  co-operation,  offer- 
ing them  lands  whereon  to  try  their  theories  of 
society,  provided  they  were  willing  to  apply  his  ideas 
of  aesthetics.  Furthermore,  he  did  not  oblige  them  for 
the  present  to  coin  special  money  after  the  fashion 
of  the  Florentine  florin,  nor  yet  to  dress  themselves 
like  the  three  Switzers  of  the  Riitli.  The  commu- 
nists consented  to  a  conference,  and  Ruskin  came 
to  it  in  a  postchaise  with  gorgeous  postillions,  so  as 
to  avoid  benefiting  the  unsightly  railroad.  It  was  at 
Sheffield  that  he  met  his  new  allies.  There  were 
twenty  of  them  of  at  least  twenty  different  sects,  and 
between  this  worshipper  of  the  Beautiful  and  the 
reformers  of  society,  between  the  Tory  partisan  of  all 
aristocracies,  and  the  levellers  of  the  fourth  estate, 
between  this  mind  free  as  air,  and  those  brains  work- 
ing rigidly  to  a  system,  the  interview  was  most  extra- 
ordinary. Not  only  did  they  come  to  no  agreement, 
but  it  is  very  doubtful  if  each  understood  what  the 
other  meant.  Nevertheless,  Ruskin  confided  to  them 
the  lands  of  the  St.  George's  Guild,  and  stepping  again 
into  his  postchaise,  disappeared  with  his  gorgeous 
postillions  and  his  picturesque  revival  of  eighteenth- 
century  lordliness,  in  a  cloud  of  dust,  leaving  the 
group  of  Deists,  Nonconformists,  and  Quakers,  not  only 
astounded  but  vastly  disconcerted.  For  the  first  time 
it  dawned  upon  them  that  no  more  than  Ruskin  did 
they  know  anything  of  agriculture;  and  like  every 
other   proprietor  they  ended   by   engaging  a    farmer. 


. 


30  HIS    PERSONALITY 

The  farm  was  a  failure,  and  instead  of  the  dreamed-of 
paradise,  they  established  a  tea-shop.  Thus  neither 
the  theories  of  the  communists,  nor  those  of  Ruskin, 
were  tested  in  the  province  of  agriculture. 

But  the  master  had  his  revenge  in  an  industrial 
enterprise.  He  heard  that  in  the  picturesque  valleys 
of  Westmoreland  the  small  rural  industries  were  dis- 
appearing daily.  There  was  no  more  wood-carving, 
no  more  spinning,  no  more  weaving  of  the  good  cloth 
of  olden  days.  The  machine,  which  stupidly  rotates, 
obeying  the  pestilential  breath  of  steam,  was  ousting 
all  the  pretty  motions  of  the  hand  which  are  governed 
by  the  living  breath  of  man.  Ruskin  rushed  to  a 
new  battlefield  to  fight  a  great  fight  with  modern 
machinery.  One  of  his  passionate  admirers,  Mr. 
Fleming,  vowed  he  would  re-establish  the  spinning- 
wheel.  But  it  was  not  easy  to  find  one,  for  that  wheel 
at  which  Margaret  sits  and  sings,  "  Quel  est  done  ce 
jeune  homme  ? "  was  at  the  London  Opera  House, 
and  not  available.  The  whole  Langdale  district  was 
searched,  and  advertisements  appeared  in  the  local 
newspapers.  At  last  a  wheel  was  found  belonging  to 
an  old  dame  who  had  not  touched  it  for  fifty  years ; 
and  immediately,  as  in  the  fairy  tale  where  the  prin- 
cess finds  the  spindle  which  wounds  her  and  causes 
her  to  fall  asleep  for  a  hundred  years,  the  entire  valley 
reassumed  the  aspect  of  a  past  century.  A  loom  was 
next  discovered,  but  all  in  pieces,  and  how  should 
it  be  put  together  ?  Fortunately  a  drawing  of  the 
loom   which  is   carved  on  the   campanile  of  Giotto — 


II.  ACTION  31 

the  Shepherd's  Tower — restored  the  tradition  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  even  as  presently  some  lines  of  the 
Odyssey  were  to  teach  the  Ruskinians  to  bleach  the 
cloth  they  had  prepared.  Perhaps  this  cloth  was  a 
little  rough ;  but  there  was  consolation  in  these  words 
of  the  Seven  Lamps :  "  It  is  possible  for  men  to 
turn  themselves  into  machines,  and  to  reduce  their 
labour  to  the  machine  level  ;  but  so  long  as  men  work 
as  men,  putting  their  heart  into  what  they  do,  and 
doing  their  best,  it  matters  not  how  bad  workmen 
they  may  be,  there  will  be  that  in  the  handling  which 
is  above  all  price.  It  will  be  plainly  seen  that  some 
places  have  been  delighted  in  more  than  others,  that 
there  have  been  a  pause  and  a  care  about  them,  and 
the  effect  of  the  whole,  as  compared  with  the  same 
design  cut  by  a  machine  or  a  lifeless  hand,  will  be  that 
of  poetry  well  read  and  deeply  felt  to  that  of  the  same 
verses  jangled  by  rote."  And  in  very  truth  after  a 
short  time  this  linen,  that  was  first  made  at  Langdale 
and  soon  after  at  Keswick,  procured  a  real  livelihood 
for  the  old  women  and  for  the  hardy  workers  of  the 
village.  Fashion  came  to  the  rescue,  and  they  say 
Ruskin  Linen  sometimes  figures  even  now  in  wedding 
trousseaux.  *\ 

Another  voice  was  heard  from  the  Isle  of  Man, 
crying  that  wool  -  spinning  was  ever  on  the  de- 
crease. The  women  were  leaving  their  wheels  and 
their  cottages  to  go  and  work  in  the  mines.  The 
young  girls  no  longer  learned  to  spin,  although  the 
black  sheep   of  the   island   still  gave  wool   and   their 


32  HIS    PERSONALITY 

durable  homespun  textures  were  in  demand  on  all 
sides.  Ruskin  takes  the  field,  finds  capital,  builds  a 
mill  at  Laxey,  and,  with  his  lieutenant  Mr.  R)'dings, 
starts  the  necessary  machines  for  carding  wool  and 
bleaching  cloth.  Machines  did  we  say  ?  but  machines 
worked  by  the  direct  forces  of  Nature,  not  by  artificial 
force,  machines  of  which  the  motive  power  is  in  con- 
formity with  aesthetics  and  such  as  were  immortalised 
by  Claude  Lorraine  in  his  Molino.  "  It  is  to  be 
carefully  noted  that  machinery  is  only  forbidden  by 
the  Guild  where  it  supersedes  healthy,  bodily  exercise, 
or  the  art  and  precision  of  manual  labour  in  decorative 
work;  but  that  the  only  permitted  motive  power  of 
machinery  is  by  natural  power  of  wind  or  water 
(electricity,  perhaps,  not  in  future  refused)  ;  but  steam 
absolutely  refused,  as  a  cruel  and  furious  waste  of 
fuel  to  do  what  every  stream  and  breeze  are  ready  to 
do  costlessly  "  {Fors).  Because  there  was  no  longer  an 
aesthetic  coinage  like  the  beautiful  florin  of  Florence, 
money  was  not  to  be  used.  The  farmers  were  to  bring 
their  wool  to  be  stored  in  the  mill,  and  they  were  to 
be  paid  in  cloth  or  in  knitting  thread  for  home  work, 
or  in  wool  prepared  for  the  spinning-wheel.  These 
bold  reactionary  ideas  did  not  shipwreck  the  industry 
of  Laxey  homespuns.  Moreover  the}'  are  only  retro- 
grade at  first  sight.  For  they  open  mysterious  vistas 
into  the  coming  age ;  and  when  Ruskin  tells  us  that 
all  industry  is  to  borrow  its  motor-force  from  the 
winds  and  rivers,  the  question  suggests  itself  whether 
this  aestheticist  has  not  found  in  his  dreams  a  formula 


II.  ACTION  33 

for  all  future  mechanics,  to  be  applied  as  soon  as  the 
huge  latent  power  of  the  rivers  and  winds,  subdued 
and  diverted  in  the  form  of  electricity,  shall  be  pressed 
into  the  service  not  only  of  the  riverside  folk  and 
mountaineers,  but  of  the  whole  world.1 

And  if  outside  among  the  indifferent  multitude 
Ruskin  strenuously  sought  to  make  public  life  conform 
to  aesthetical  laws,  even  more  strenuously  would  he 
endeavour  to  make  his  own  life  conform  to  those  laws. 
He  is  none  of  those  priests,  who,  to  use  his  own 
expression,  "go  and  dine  with  the  rich  and  preach  to 
the  poor."  At  Brantwood,  his  home  on  Coniston 
Lake,  he  devised  a  very  costly  reclamation  of  land  in 
order  to  entice  the  peasants  away  from  the  toil  of 
towns  which  degraded  while  it  attracted  them.  He 
himself  set  the  example  of  muscular  labour  by  building 
a  little  port  on  the  lake  with  some  of  his  disciples  in 
the  intervals  of  translating  Xenophon,  and  by  repair- 
ing with  his  pupils  at  Oxford  a  road  near  Hinksey. 
No  laughter  deterred  these  strange  road-makers  who 
broke  more  pickaxes  and  took  more  time  than  any 
ordinary  labourers  would  have  done.  The  master 
himself  took  lessons  in  carpentering  and  in  house- 
painting,  in  some  of  which  phases  he  resembles  Tol- 
stoi, of  whom  he  said  :  "  He  will  be  my  successor," 
and  who  in  his  turn  said  of  Ruskin,  "  He  is  one 
of  the  greatest  men  of  this  century."  Pursuing 
his   contest    with    machinery    to    the    bitter    end,    he 

1  The  above  account  does  not  seem  to  agree  in  all  details  with  that 
of  Mr.  George  Thomson,  given  in  the  Appendix  to  this  volume. 


34  HIS    PERSONALITY 

banished  gas  from  his  house,  and  opposed  with  all 
his  might  the  introduction  of  a  railroad  to  Amble- 
side through  the  picturesque  country  of  the  Lakes  in 
which  he  lived.  The  hatred  of  steam  inspired  him 
with  startling  arguments.  Do  you  wish  to  know,  he 
cries  to  his  fellow-citizens,  what  is  the  purpose  of  a 
railway  ?     Here  it  is  : 

"  The  Town  of  Ulverstone  is  twelve  miles  from  me, 
by  four  miles  of  mountain  road  beside  Coniston  lake, 
three  through  a  pastoral  valley,  five  by  the  sea-side. 
A  healthier  or  lovelier  walk  would  be  difficult  to  find. 
In  old  times,  if  a  Coniston  peasant  had  any  business 
at  Ulverstone,  he  walked  to  Ulverstone ;  spent  nothing 
but  shoe-leather  on  the  road,  drank  at  the  streams, 
and  if  he  spent  a  couple  of  batz  when  he  got  to 
Ulverstone,  'it  was  the  end  of  the  world.'  But  now 
he  would  never  think  of  doing  such  a  thing !  He 
first  walks  three  miles  in  a  contrary  direction  to  a 
railroad  station,  and  then  travels  by  railroad  twenty- 
four  miles  to  Ulverstone,  paying  two  shillings  fare. 
During  the  twenty -four  miles'  transit,  he  is  idle, 
dusty,  stupid ;  and  either  more  hot  or  cold  than  is 
pleasant  to  him.  In  either  case  he  drinks  beer  at 
two  or  three  of  the  stations,  passes  his  time  between 
them,  with  anybody  he  can  find,  in  talking  without 
having  anything  to  talk  of;  and  such  talk  always 
becomes  vicious.  He  arrives  at  Ulverstone,  jaded, 
half-drunk,  and  otherwise  demoralised,  and  three  shil- 
lings, at  least,  poorer  than  in  the  morning." 

If  the  Master  did  not  allow  the  train  to  carry  his 


II.  ACTION  35 

person  he  did  not  even  use  it  to  transport  his  books, 
if  anywise  that  might  be  helped.  The  volumes  that 
his  publisher  sent  from  the  publishing  house  at 
Orpington  to  his  house  in  London  travelled  by  road. 

With  Ruskin  action  follows  speedily  upon  the  idea. 
His  watchword  is — To-day.  He  writes  as  he  fights, 
to  obtain  results — evident — immediate — decisive.  The, 
first  thing  that  a  visitor  observes  on  entering  the 
National  Gallery  in  London  is  the  crystalline  sheen 
on  the  pictures  there,  and  he  will  quickly  see  that 
all  are  under  glass,  like  water-colours.  The  smoky 
atmosphere  of  London  renders  this  precaution  neces- 
sary, but  it  was  not  adopted  until  Ruskin  had  sug- 
gested it  in  a  letter  to  the  Times  in  1845.  Another 
striking  point  is  the  extraordinary  wealth  of  pictures 
by  Early  Italian  Masters.  Five  rooms  devoted  to  the 
Schools  of  Siena  and  Florence  contain  pictures  of 
exquisite  purity  by  Botticelli,  Filippo  Lippi,  Benozzo 
Gozzoli,  Perugino,  Ghirlandajo,  Pinturicchio,  whereas 
our  gallery  in  the  Louvre  gives  us  nothing  like  the 
same  opportunities  of  study.  Now  in  1845  the  London 
collection  possessed  very  few  examples  of  these  mas- 
ters ;  but  there  to-day  is  the  answer  to  Ruskin's  cry 
of  reproach  when  he  returned  from  Italy.  Still  more 
in  the  Turner  Room  do  we  perceive  the  triumphant 
success  of  his  campaign  in  favour  of  the  great  painter 
of  landscape;  and  if  we  descend  to  the  basement 
where  are  preserved  the  drawings  and  water-colours, 
down  to  the  slightest  sketches,  from  the  same  hand 
as    Dido    at    Carthage,    we    shall    understand    that 


36  HIS    PERSONALITY 

Modern  Painters  was  not  published  in  vain.  Nor 
in  vain  were  written  the  Stones  of  Venice  and  the 
Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  for  English  architecture 
has,  largely  owing  to  their  influence,  been  entirely 
transformed  since  those  books  appeared.  A  sober 
Gothic,  gay  Dutch  colouring  and  a  picturesque  variety 
has  succeeded  to  the  pseudo-Greek  style.  The  archi- 
tects of  the  Oxford  Museum,  Sir  Thomas  Dean  and 
Mr.  Woodward,  complied  expressly  with  the  precepts 
of  Ruskin,  in  that  they  allowed  the  workmen  to  design 
the  details  of  the  ornamentation  themselves,  to  decorate 
in  their  own  fashion  the  capitals  and  the  spandrils  ; 
and  designs  of  English  fern,  which  show  the  inexperi- 
ence but  also  the  independence  of  the  stonecutter,  re- 
place 'ready-made'  acanthi  of  the  classic  style.  It  was 
at  Oxford  too  that  a  group  of  young  and  enthusiastic 
artists  tried,  under  the  direction  of  Ruskin,  to  paint 
in  fresco  the  library  of  the  Union  Debating  Society. 
Time  has  since  destroyed  these  experiments,  made 
under  bad  material  conditions,  but  it  was  not  therefore 
all  in  vain  that  the  Master  of  the  Laws  of  Fiesole 
animated  with  his  holy  fire  men  like  Dante  Ros- 
setti,  William  Morris,  Munro,  Millais,  Hunt,  Woolner, 
Prinsep,  and  Burne-Jones.  All  those  among  this 
group,  who  were  then  unknown,  have  since  made 
their  name,  and  the  note  of  enthusiasm  sounded  at 
that  time  by  Ruskin  vibrates  still,  though  the  colours 
on  the  walls  of  the  Union  have  long  since  faded 
away. 

His  disciples    do    him    honour.     One   of   them,    M. 


II.  ACTION  37 

Giacomo  Boni,  has  undertaken  the  preservation  of" 
monuments  in  Italy,  and  administers  his  trust  according 
to  the  precepts  of  Ruskin.  From  the  latter's  drawing- 
classes  for  adults  have  come  artists  of  all  sorts, 
engravers,  draughtsmen,  decorators,  woodcarvers,  such 
men  as  George  Allen,  W.  H.  Hooper,  Arthur  Burgess, 
Bunney,  E.  Cooke,  W.  Ward,  who  continue  up  to  the 
present  time  to  aid  the  Master  with  their  labours. 
The  early  pre-Raphaelites  whom  he  defended  have 
triumphed.  The  neo-pre-Raphaelites,  like  Burne-Jones, 
whom  he  encouraged  from  the  beginning,  are  above 
the  fluctuations  of  opinion  and  have  taken  their  place, 
so  to  speak,  in  history.  Two  of  the  landscape  painters 
he  most  praised,  Hook  and  Brett,  are  certainly  among 
the  first,  if  not  quite  the  first,  of  their  country.  It 
may  be  boldly  stated  that  at  least  one  half  of  the 
higher  art  of  our  day  in  England  is  due  to  Ruskin, 
thanks  as  much  to  his  immense  authority  over 
artists  as  to  his  enormous  influence  upon  the  public. 
Great  artistic  energy  cannot  produce  great  art  unaided  ; 
there  must  be  amateurs  to  admire,  to  encourage,  to 
understand,  and,  if  one  dare  say  the  word,  to  support 
it.  Ruskin  multiplied  these  amateurs  by  the  hundred. 
He  taught  his  countrymen  to  appreciate  Nature,  to 
look  at  and  to  love  pictures.  Even  his  enemies  cannot 
deny  this.  Long  ago  Miss  Bronte  wrote :  "  I  have 
lately  been  reading  Modern  Painters,  and  have  de- 
rived from  the  work  much  genuine  pleasure,  and,  I 
hope,  some  edification ;  at  any  rate  it  has  made  me 
feel  how  ignorant  I  had  previously  been  on  the  subjects 


38  HIS    PERSONALITY 

which  it  treats.  Hitherto  I  have  had  only  instinct  to 
guide  me  in  judging  of  art;  I  feel  now  as  if  I  had 
been  walking  blindfold — this  book  seems  to  give  me 
new  eyes."  And  not  Miss  Bronte  alone  says  so,  but 
all  those  in  England  who  in  the  last  forty  years  have 
learnt  that  "  a  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever." 

Although  he  has  not  succeeded,  as  he  hoped,  in 
reinstating  Beauty  as  a  factor  in  national  life,  he  has 
by  aiming  over-high  succeeded  none  the  less  in  attain- 
ing certain  ends.  For  instance  in  1854  he  penned  a 
vigorous  diatribe  against  the  Crystal  Palace,  "this 
cucumber  frame  with  two  chimneys,"  and  in  censuring 
the  expenditure  on  the  new  architecture  in  glass  and 
iron  he  suggested  a  society  for  the  preservation  of  old 
stone  monuments.  The  Crystal  Palace  was  not  de- 
stroyed, but  the  proposed  society  was  founded.  In 
like  manner  if  engines  have  not  been  pulled  to  pieces 
nor  railroads  destroyed,  England  has  learnt  that  a 
landscape  has  a  value  merely  for  the  pleasure  it  gives 
to  the  eye,  and  that  a  picturesque  oasis  may  be  a 
source  of  wealth.  So  much  so  that  once  a  few  years 
ago  artists  were  summoned  to  give  evidence  before  a 
committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  as  to  whether  a 
certain  valley  would  be  disfigured,  by  a  projected  rail- 
road. If  all  the  rich  people  in  England  have  not  sold 
their  London  houses  in  order  to  take  up  their  abode 
in  and  restore  old  palaces  of  Verona,  at  least  one, 
whose  name  is  great  in  poetry,  realised  at  Venice  the 
dream  of  the  great  sestheticist.  Finally  the  Ruskinian 
propaganda  in  favour  of  picturesque  costumes  and  the 


II.  ACTION  39 

masques  of  olden  time  has  not  failed  as  completely 
as  might  be  supposed.  Any  one  who  asks  per- 
mission to  enter  the  Girls'  College  of  Whitelands  in 
Chelsea  on  the  first  of  May  will  find  the  chapel 
and  the  hall  decorated  with  flowers,  flowers  sent  by 
old  pupils  from  all  parts  of  England ;  for  the  return 
of  Spring  is  celebrated  on  that  day.  One-hundred- 
and-fifty  pupils,  assembled  in  the  hall,  have  elected 
by  ballot  a  Queen  of  May.  She  is  chosen  not  for  her 
beauty,  or  for  her  learning,  but  because  she  is  beloved. 
Here  she  comes  !  Her  companions  form  a  double  row 
and  hold  out  palms,  which  arch  over  her  head  as  she 
passes.  She  is  crowned  with  flowers,  dressed  in  an 
archaic  costume  designed  by  Kate  Greenaway,  and 
decorated  with  a  golden  cross  designed  by  Burne- 
Jones.  Behind  her  walks  the  Queen  of  the  past  year, 
her  head  wreathed  with  forget-me-nots.  She  mounts 
her  throne  and  her  companions  pass  in  front  of  her 
to  salute  and  receive  their  presents,  which  are  no 
other  than  the  works  of  Ruskin,  beautifully  bound. 
You  may  almost  hear  these  clustering  flowers  murmur 
together  the  words  written  in  the  pages  of  Sesame 
and  Lilies :  "And  whether  consciously  or  not,  you 
must  be  in  many  a  heart  enthroned :  there  is  no 
putting  by  that  crown  ;  queens  you  must  always  be ; 
queens  to  your  lovers ;  queens  to  your  husbands  and 
your  sons ;  queens  of  higher  mystery  to  the  world 
beyond,  which  bows  itself  and  will  ever  bow,  before 
the  myrtle  crown,  and  the  stainless  sceptre  of  woman- 
hood.    But  it  is  little   to   say  of  a  woman,  that   she 


40  HIS    PERSONALITY 

only  does  not  destroy  where  she  passes.  She  should 
revive;  the  harebells  should  bloom,  not  stoop,  as  she 
passes."  The  prizes  are  distributed  after  no  com- 
petition, for  the  Master  holds  rivalry  in  horror.  The 
Queen  disposes  of  them  by  right  of  her  sovereignty, 
to  this  one  because  she  is  faithful  to  her  friends,  to 
that  one  because  she  delights  in  music,  to  that  other 
because  she  is  always  merry,  to  this  last  because  the 
Queen  loves  her  well.  And  it  is  especially  charming, 
writes  a  witness,  to  see  the  Queen's  grateful  smile 
when  a  special  friend  passes  by  and  kisses  her  hands 
on  receiving  the  book.  The  praises  of  the  King 
Eternal  sung  at  chapel  in  the  morning  have  pre- 
ceded this  homage  to  the  Queen  of  a  day.  And 
in  the  evening  if  she,  who  has  received  as  a  prize 
the  Ruskin  Birthday-Book,  should  open  it  at  the 
first  day  of  May,  she  will  find  there,  not  as  in  the 
socialist  newspapers  recriminations  against  the  law 
of  daily  toil,  but  these  words  of  the  Master :  "  If, 
resolutely,  people  do  what  is  right,  in  time  they  come 
to  like  doing  it." 

Doubtless  it  will  be  said  that  this  insignificant  pro- 
test of  a  remote  school  in  London  against  the  apathy 
of  the  mass  and  the  ugliness  of  all  things  is  but  of 
little  moment.  But  of  the  pupils  in  this  school,  who 
are  all  educated  to  be  teachers,  already  more  than 
one  has  instituted  in  her  village  Ruskin's  aesthetical 
festival.  The  wreaths  of  flowers  may  fade,  but  the 
seed  sown  ten  years  ago  will  blossom  afar  off,  even 
in  Ireland,  and   each   first  of  May  will   bring  before 


II.   ACTION  41 

this  little  band  of  disciples,  visions,  not  of  gloomy 
meetings  where  black  -  coated  doctrinaires  preach  a 
doctrine  of  "  Union  against  Labour,"  as  in  M.  Beraud's 
picture  of  La  Salle  Graffard,  but  of  a  day  of  peace 
and  joy  and  bright  garments,  when  no  socialistic  creeds 
are  proclaimed  but  the  gospel  of  Nature,  whose  first- 
fruits  gathered  in  spring  are  due  to  the  long  hard 
dark  travail  of  winter — Nature,  whose  lessons  are  not 
those  of  idleness,  but  of  toil,  not  of  revolt  against 
human  laws,  but  of  obedience  to  those  divine  laws, 
which  we  may  disown  but  we  cannot  disobey. 


CHAPTER    III 

EXPRESSION 

The  man  who  has  accomplished  these  things,  smiles 
even  in  his  sorrow,  is  sympathetic  even  when  he 
tyrannises,  and  noble  even  when  he  hates.  We 
have  seen  him  standing  in  ecstasy,  like  one  of  Fra 
Angelico's  angels,  in  a  meadow-land  dazzled  by  the 
flowers  of  the  field ;  and  we  have  seen  him  in  battle, 
his  muscles  braced  like  one  of  Michael  Angelo's 
figures  withstanding  the  onslaught  of  a  multitude. 
Let  us  now  examine  him  as  we  might  examine  a 
portrait  by  Holbein  of  a  face  in  repose,  so  tranquil 
that  we  can  count  the  faintest  wrinkles,  so  clear  that 
we  may  follow  every  line  of  their  maze.  Perhaps  in 
considering  him  in  his  private  life,  in  his  immediate 
and  personal  surrounding,  we  shall  find  that  Dante 
might  have  said  of  him  also  : — 

"  And  if  the  world  knew  his  heart, 
After  having  praised  him  much 
It  would  have  praised  him  yet  more." 

But  the  world  knew  it  not.  Vexed  by  his  militant 
enthusiasm,  it  has  taxed  him  with  intolerance,  and 
annoyed  with  his  child-like  joy  at  being  his  own 
personal  witness  to  those  beauties  and  truths  which 


III.   EXPRESSION  43 

he  proclaimed,  it  has  called  him  presumptuous. 
Ruskin's  enthusiasm  for  these  truths,  as  they  were 
borne  in  upon  him  one  by  one,  it  calls  contradictory, 
his  admiration  for  all  great  work  it  calls  incon- 
stancy, his  zeal  it  calls  tyranny,  his  generosity  it 
calls  egoism.  The  word  which  most  correctly  and 
comprehensively  describes  all  these  characteristics  and 
explains  Ruskin — the  quality  which  forms  the  third 
great  feature  of  his  personality — is  outspoken  sincerity 
and  frankness,  or,  as  he  himself  terms  it  from  its  old 
derivation,  Franchise. 

"To  be  ik€v9epo<;,  liber  or  franc,  is  first  to  have 
learned  to  rule  our  own  passions  ;  and  then,  certain 
that  our  own  conduct  is  right,  to  persist  in  that  conduct 
against  all  resistance,  whether  of  counter-opinion,  or 
counter-pain,  or  counter-pleasure.  To  be  defiant  alike 
of  the  mob's  thought,  of  the  adversary's  threat,  and  the 
harlot's  temptation, — this  is  in  the  meaning  of  every 
great  nation  to  be  free ;  and  the  one  condition  upon 
which  that  freedom  can  be  obtained  is  pronounced 
to  you  in  a  single  verse  of  the  119th  Psalm,  'I  will 
walk  at  liberty,  for  I  seek  Thy  precepts.'  "  This  rugged 
and  independent  frankness  towards  others  made  him 
sometimes  lose  all  sense  of  proportion  and  forget  all 
politeness.  When  some  one  told  him  that  he  had  been 
much  interested  in  his  writings  he  answered  shortly, 
"  I  don't  care  whether  they  have  interested  you  ;  have 
they  done  you  any  good  ?  "  He  answered  in  French 
to  a  lady  president  of  the  Society  for  the  Emancipation 
of  Women  who  asked  for  his  countenance,  "  You  are 
nothing  but  a  set  of  fools  in  this  matter."     He  wrote 


44  HIS    PERSONALITY 

to  the  students  of  Glasgow  who  offered  to  nominate 
him  for  the  Rectorship  of  the  University  in  opposition 
to  Mr.  Fawcett  and  the  Marquis  of  Bute,  but  begged  of 
him  a  statement  of  his  political  ideas, — at  least  so  much 
that  they  might  know  whether  he  was  for  Mr.  Disraeli 
or  Mr.  Gladstone — "  What  in  the  devil's  name  have 
you  to  do  with  either  Mr.  Disraeli  or  Mr.  Gladstone  ? 
You  are  students  at  the  University,  and  have  no  more 
business  with  politics  than  you  have  with  ratcatching. 
Had  you  ever  read  ten  words  of  mine  (with  under- 
standing) you  would  have  known  that  I  care  no  more 
either  for  Mr.  Disraeli  or  Mr.  Gladstone  than  for  two 
old  bagpipes  with  the  drones  going  by  steam,  but  that 
I  hate  all  Liberalism  as  I  do  Beelzebub,  and  that,  with 
Carlyle,  I  stand,  we  two  alone  now  in  England,  for 
God  and  the  Queen."  Just  what  he  thinks  he  boldly 
states,  without  heeding  the  effect,  and  without  con- 
sideration for  his  own  admirers.  A  clergyman,  who 
had  run  into  debt  by  building  a  church  at  Richmond, 
appealed  to  Ruskin  for  money.     He  wrote  to  him  : — 

"  Brantwood,  Coniston,  Lancashire, 
May  \qt/i,  1886. 

"SIR, — I  am  scornfully  amused  at  your  appeal  to 
me,  of  all  people  in  the  world,  the  precisely  least  likely 
to  give  you  a  farthing.  My  first  word  to  all  men  and 
boys  who  care  to  hear  me  is,  ^Don't  get  into  debt. 
Starve  and  go  to  heaven — but  don't  borrow.  Try 
first  begging, — I  don't  mind,  if  it  is  really  needful, 
stealing.     But  don't  buy  things  you  can't  pay  for.' 

"  And  of  all  manner  of  debtors,  pious  people  building 


III.   EXPRESSION  45 

churches  they  can't  pay  for  are  the  most  detestable 
nonsense  to  me.  Can't  you  preach  and  pray  behind 
the  hedges — or  in  a  sand-pit — or  a  coal-hole — first? 

"  And  of  all  manner  of  churches  thus  idiotically  built, 
iron  churches  are  the  damnablest  to  me.  And  of  all 
the  sects  of  believers  in  any  ruling  spirit — Hindoos, 
Turks,  Feather-idolaters,  and  Mumbo-Jumbo,  Log  and 
Fire-worshippers,  who  want  churches,  your  modern 
English  Evangelical  sect  is  the  most  absurd,  and 
entirely  objectionable  and  unendurable  to  me.  All  of 
which  they  might  very  easily  have  found  out  from  my 
books — any  other  sort  of  sect  would  ! — before  bother- 
ing me  to  write  it  to  them.  Ever,  nevertheless,  and  in 
all  this  saying,  your  faithful  servant, 

"John  Ruskin." 

This  is  the  abrupt  side  qL  his  frankness,  where 
spring  more  briars  and  brambles  than  beneficent  and 
nourishing  herbs.  But  we  may  observe  that  the 
Master  did  not  spare  himself  any  more  than  he  spared 
others.  Often  in  Prcsterita  he  speaks  of  the  "fol- 
lies and  absurdities  "  of  his  youth  :  he  derides  his 
own  pompous  style  in  Modern  Painters,  and  the 
period  when,  if  he  had  to  tell  any  one  their  house  was 
on  fire,  he  would  not  have  said,  "  Sir,  your  house  is 
on  fire,"  but  "  Sir,  the  abode  in  which  I  presume  you 
passed  the  days  of  youth  is  in  a  state  of  inflammation." 
He  boldly  reprints  his  writings,  mutilated,  in  confession 
of  his  errors,  and  having  spoken  of  Mr.  Gladstone, 
whom  he  scarcely  knew,  with  the  audacity  which  was 


46  HIS    PERSONALITY 

usual  to  him,  he  suppressed  the  violent  sentences  in 
the  next  edition,  and  left  a  blank  space  in  record  of 
his  unjust  judgment.  He  does  no  more  than  justice 
to  himself  and  also  to  the  futility  of  literature.  In 
1870,  when  his  friends  entreated  him  to  write  to  the 
King  of  Prussia  and  beg  him  to  divert  his  guns  from 
those  Gothic  cathedrals  of  France  which  he  was  wont 
to  admire  most  in  the  world,  he  refused,  calling  his 
friends  "  vain  persons  who  imagine  that  a  writer  has 
any  power  of  intercession  "  with  a  sovereign  so  little 
sentimental  as  he  of  Germany.  Nevertheless  he 
subscribed  largely  to  the  famine  fund  in  Paris  with 
Archbishop  Manning,  Sir  John  Lubbock,  and  Professor 
Huxley.  The  moment  that  it  struck  him  that  criticism 
of  art  cannot  seriously  improve  the  art  of  a  country, 
nor  even  improve  the  character  of  any  but  the  most 
mediocre  works,  he  did  not  pause  to  reflect  that  such 
an  avowal  could  be  turned  against  himself,  and  against 
the  thirty  volumes  into  which  he  had  put  all  his  life, 
but  loudly  proclaimed  what  he  had  just  discovered. 
"You  sent  for  me  to  talk  to  you  of  art;  and  I  have 
obeyed  you  in  coming.  But  the  main  thing  I  have  to 
tell  you  is — that  art  must  not  be  talked  about.  The 
fact  that  there  is  talk  about  it  at  all,  signifies  that  it 
is  ill  done,  or  cannot  be  done.  No  true  painter  ever 
speaks,  or  ever  has  spoken  much  of  his  art.  The 
greatest  speak  nothing."  Here  we  have  one  of  those 
frequent  sentences  of  his  which  have  seemed  inconsis- 
tent, and  which  have  caused  the  Master  of  the  Stones 
of  Venice  to  be  considered  a  Bonghi  or  a  Chamberlain 


III.   EXPRESSION  47 

in  art  criticism.    Certainly  he  has  contradicted  himself, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  he  has  thought  differently  on 
the  same  subject  at  different  times.     We  all  do  that, 
but  we  do    not  all    say  we  do   it,  and  moreover,  we 
do  not  generally  rush  into   print  at   fifteen,  and   few 
of  us  at  sixty-eight  write  with  our  mental  vigour  un- 
impaired.    Ruskin  was  in  haste  to  write  his  thoughts 
without   reservation,  and   he  was    still  thinking  even 
as  he  wrote.     He  did  not  wait  to  write  until  certain 
that  his  views  were  finally  formed,  even  as  later  he 
did  not  stop  writing  when   he  found  that   they  were 
still  fluid.     Wherever  he  thought  to  find  a  fresh  light 
he  advanced  towards  it,  and  having  sometimes  gone 
forward  without  prudence  he  has  come  back  without 
shame,  having  only  one  thing  in  view,  namely  Truth. 
Where    his   armour    is    weak,  the   armour  of    many 
another   author  would  be    weak    equally  had    he    the 
same   sincerity.     In   thought  every  one   of  us   is   in- 
consistent ;  let   us  not   blame  Ruskin  overmuch  if  he 
is  inconsistent  also  in  utterance. 

But  his  "  franchise "  did  him  good  service  when  it 
opened  his  eyes  to  all  the  wretchedness  which  lies 
below  the  ivory  tower  of  the  dilettante  and  the 
aesthete,  and  pointed  out  his  plain  duty  to  descend 
and  offer  help.  We  have  seen  his  sincerity  lead  him 
to  diatribe  ;  now  let  us  see  it  lead  him  to  charity. 
Being  during  March  1863  in  the  Alps  at  Mornex, 
Ruskin  in  that  splendid  and  restful  scenery  examined 
his  conscience  and  asked  himself  if  he  had  the  right 
to  gratify  in  peace  his  passion  for  nature.     He  wrote 


48  HIS    PERSONALITY 

to  a  friend :  "  The  loneliness  is  very  great ;  and  the 
peace  in  which  I  am  at  present  is  only  as  if  I  had 
buried  myself  in  a  tuft  of  grass  on  a  battlefield  wet 
with  blood — for  the  cry  of  the  earth  about  me  is  in 
my  ears  continually.  ...  I  am  still  very  unwell,  and 
tormented  between  the  longing  for  rest  and  lovely  life, 
and  the  sense  of  this  terrific  call  of  human  crime  for 
resistance,  and  of  human  misery  for  help."  Then  he 
tears  himself  away  from  his  egotistical  contemplation, 
calling  to  mind  that  there  are  at  least  as  many  peasants 
as  painters  in  a  landscape.  He  would  look  no  longer 
at  Turner,  but  would  read  the  economists ;  and  he 
found  them  ridiculous  with  their  universal  optimism, 
and  even  went  to  Manchester  itself  to  deliver  a  vehe- 
ment onslaught  on  the  theory  of  laissez-faire  and  lais- 
sez-passer.  And  he  wrote  Fors  Clavigera,  a  monthly 
letter  to  artisans  of  all  classes,  and  developed  therein 
his  gospel  of  society.  But  he  is  not  one  of  those  who 
think  to  speak  is  to  act.  He  admitted  loyally  that  he 
was  wrong,  to  give  advice  instead  of  example,  and 
proceeded  forthwith  to  found  and  endow  St.  George's 
Guild,  to  give  Miss  Octavia  Hill  houses  for  working 
men's  dwellings,  and  to  subscribe  everywhere  to 
special  schemes.  And  the  searching  sincerity  which 
with  him  knows  no  bounds  finds  vent  in  vigorous 
words  :  "  I  am  trying  to  reform  the  world,"  said  he 
one  day  in  his  rooms  at  Oxford  to  one  of  his  friends, 
"  and  I  suppose  I  ought  to  begin  with  myself.  I  am 
trying  to  do  St.  Benedict's  work,  and  I  ought  to  be  a 
saint.     And  yet  I  am  living  between  a  Turkey  carpet 


III.    EXPRESSION 


49 


and  a  Titian,  and  drinking  as  much  tea  "  (taking  his 
second  cup  of  tea)  "as  I  can  swig." 

"This  is  just  what  we  feel  ourselves,"  writes  to  him 
a  lady  admirer.     "  I  will  join  St.  George's  Guild  when- 
ever you  join  it  yourself.     Above  all  things,  you  urge 
our   duties    to    the    land,    the    common    earth    of  our 
country.      You    speak    of  the   duty    of    acquiring,    if 
possible,  and  cultivating  the  smallest  piece  of  ground. 
But  (forgive  the  question),  where  is  your  house  and 
your  garden  ?     I  know  you  have  got  places,  but  you 
do    not   stay   there.      Almost    every   month  you    date 
from  some  new  place,  a  dream  of  delight  to  me ;  and 
all  the  time  I  am  stopping  at  home,  labouring  to  im- 
prove the  place  I  live  at,  to  keep  the  lives  entrusted 
to  me.     And  when    I   read  }rour  reproaches,  and  see 
where  they  date  from,  I  feel  as  a  soldier  freezing  in 
the  trenches  before  Sebastopol  might  feel  at  receiving 
orders  from  a  general  who  was  dining  at  his  club  in 
London.     Again  I  agree  with  you  in  your  dislike  of 
railways,  but  I  suspect  3rou  use  them,  and  sometimes 
go  on   them.     I  never  do.     You   see  you  are  like  a 
clergyman  in  the  pulpit  in  your  books ;  you  can  scold 
the  congregation,  and  they  cannot  answer;  behold  the 
congregation  begins  to  reply." 

The  prophet  did  not  flinch  from  this  sharp  attack. 
He  inserted  the  letter  of  the  recalcitrant  member  in  the 
next  number  of  Fors  and  answered  it.  "She  tells  me 
first  that  I  have  not  joined  the  St.  George's  Company, 
because  I  have  no  home.  It  is  too  true.  But  that  is 
because  my  father,  and  mother,  and  nurse,  are  dead  ; 

D 


50  HIS    PERSONALITY 

because  the  woman  I  hoped  would  have  been  my  wife 
is  dying;  and  because  the  place  where  I  would  fain 
have  stayed  to  remember  all  of  them,  was  rendered 
physically  uninhabitable  to  me  by  the  violence  of  my 
neighbours — that  is  to  say  by  their  destroying  the 
fields  I  needed  to  think  in,  and  the  light  I  needed 
to  work  by.  Thirdly  my  correspondent  doubts  the 
sincerity  of  my  abuse  of  railroads,  because  she  sus- 
pects I  use  them.  I  do  so  constantly,  my  dear  lady ; 
few  men  more.  I  use  everything  that  comes  within 
reach  of  me.  If  the  devil  were  standing  at  my  side 
at  this  moment,  I  should  endeavour  to  make  some 
use  of  him  as  a  local  black.  The  wisdom  of  life  is  in 
preventing  all  the  evil  we  can,  and  using  what  is  in- 
evitable for  the  best  purpose.  I  use  my  sicknesses  for 
the  work  I  despise  in  health ;  my  enemies  for  the 
study  of  the  philosophy  of  benediction  and  maledic- 
tion ;  and  railroads  for  whatever  I  find  of  help  in  them 
— looking  always  hopefully  forward  to  the  day  when 
their  embankments  will  be  ploughed  down  again,  like 
the  camps  of  Rome,  into  our  English  fields."  Sar- 
casm can  hardly  be  deaf  to  such  a  cry  of  distress ; 
but  the  Master  has  withheld  nothing  which  could  give 
support  to  the  irrepressible  sallies  of  his  detractors. 

It  was  to  be  his  lot  to  direct  this  brilliant  and  pene- 
trating force  of  observation  into  the  recesses  of  his 
own  heart,  and  conscience ;  into  the  home  of  all  un- 
acknowledged feelings  and  all  unexpressed  doubts, 
where  all  light  wounds  and  where  all  wounds  kill. 
It  was  to  be  his  lot  to  apply  it  where  analysis  can  be 


III.  EXPRESSION  51 

least  endured  ;   to  both  Faith  and  Love.     He  has  in 
Prceterita  dissected  his  first  passion  in  terms  cold  and 
mordant  as  steel :  "  I  wonder  mightily  now,"  he  cries 
with  the  regret  of  a  devotee,   "  what  sort  of  a  crea- 
ture  I  should   have   turned   out,   if  at   this   time  love 
had  been  with  me  instead  of  against  me  ;  and  instead 
of  the  distracting  and   useless    pain,   I   had  had   the 
joy  of  approved  love,  and  the  unreliable  incalculable 
motive  of  its  sympathy  and  praise,"  but  loyal  to  the 
Eternal  purpose  he  added  at  once :    "  It  seems  to  me 
such  things  are  not  allowed  in  this  world.     The  men 
capable  of  the  highest  imaginative  passion  are  always 
tossed  on  the  fiery  waves  by  it ;  the  men  who  find  it 
smooth  water  and  not  scalding,  are  of  another  sort." 
Faith  he  still  thought  to  possess,  if  not  exactly  that 
which   he  had  gleaned   from   reading    the   Psalms    in 
the  orchard  at  Heme   Hill,   at  any  rate  such  as  his 
admiration  for  George  Herbert  and  the  Vaudois  had 
given  him.      He  recollected   that  on   one   Sunday   at 
Gap  he  had   broken   the   Sabbath   by   climbing   after 
church  among  his  beloved  mountains,  and  this  victory 
of   his    passion    for    nature    over   his    religious    duty 
haunted  him  afterwards  as  a  cruel  memory.     Twelve 
years    later    he   took   to    drawing    on    Sundays.      By 
degrees    disgust   with   the  narrowness  of  those  sects 
which  he  had   been  taught  to   love,  a  clearer  under- 
standing of  the  aesthetical  beauty  of  that  Catholicism 
which  he  had  been  taught  to  abhor,  and  the  doubts 
which  science  sets  in  all  our  paths,  plunged  him  in  the 
agnosticism  which  Mallock,  his  disciple,  has  described 


52  HIS    PERSONALITY 

in  his  New  Republic :  "Am  I  a  believer?  No,  I  am  a 
doubter  too.  Once  I  could  pray  every  morning,  and  go 
forth  to  my  day's  labour  stayed  and  comforted.  But 
now  I  can  pray  no  longer.  You  have  taken  my  God 
away  from  me,  and  I  know  not  where  you  have  laid 
Him."  By  a  strange  chance  it  was  at  the  most  acute 
moment  of  this  perpetual  but  unavowed  torture  that 
love  came  to  him  and  forced  him  to  look  with  open 
eyes  into  himself,  and  to  put  his  sincerity  to  a  test 
which  was  most  painful.  He  was  at  Oxford.  A  young 
lady,  for  whom  his  attachment  was  known,  and  who 
even  passed  as  his  betrothed,  was  dying.  Her  reli- 
gious sentiments  had  revived  during  the  last  years  of 
her  life,  and  for  some  time  past  she  had  refused  to 
entertain  any  further  thought  of  marriage  with  an 
unbeliever.  He  asked  to  see  her  again.  She  sent  "  to 
ask  him  whether  he  could  yet  say  that  he  loved  God 
better  than  he  loved  her."  Ruskin  scanned  his  mind 
as  closely  as  any  sailor  the  horizon  on  a  murky  night, 
but  no  light  showed  him  safety  either  on  the  shores 
of  that  Presbyterianism  which  he  had  just  left,  or  on 
those  of  that  catholic  Christianity,1  where  some  years 
later  he  was  to  find  a  haven.  Loyally  and  bravely  he 
answered  No,  and  the  door  closed  upon  him. 

The  man  who  denounced  his  own  weaknesses  to 
himself  so  frankly  did  not  hesitate  to  rejoice  in  his 
own  work  when  it  seemed  to  him  good.  His  may 
not  have  been  modesty  as   the  hypocrites  of  society 

1  In  the  widest  sense.  It  is  clear  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
is  not  here  included. 


III.  EXPRESSION  53 

understand  it,  but  modesty  it  was  as  we  may  under- 
stand it  in  him.  Modesty  for  Ruskin  does  not  consist 
in  doubting  his  own  capacity  or  in  hesitating  to  main- 
tain his  own  opinion,  but  in  understanding  aright 
the  relation  between  what  he  is  capable  of  and  what 
others  are  capable  of,  and  in  measuring  exactly  and 
without  exaggeration  his  own  worth.  For  modesty  is 
the  "measuring  virtue,  the  virtue  of  modes  or  limits. 
Arnolfo  is  modest  when  he  says  he  can  build  a 
beautiful  dome  at  Florence.  Diirer  also,  who  wrote 
to  some  one  who  found  fault  with  his  work,  '  Sir,  it 
cannot  be  better  done,'  for  he  was  convinced  of  it, 
and  to  say  anything  else  would  have  been  a  want  of 
sincerity.  Modesty  is  so  pleased  with  other  people's 
doings,  that  she  has  no  leisure  to  lament  her  own; 
and  thus,  knowing  the  fresh  feeling  of  contentment, 
unstained  with  thought  of  self,  she  does  not  fear  being 
pleased,  when  there  is  cause,  with  her  own  Tightness,  as 
with  another's,  saying  calmly  :  '  Be  it  mine,  or  yours, 
or  whose  else  it  may  be,  it  is  no  matter; — this  also 
is  well.' "  In  writing  these  lines  Ruskin  intended  to 
declare  his  opinion ;  he  has  succeeded  in  reproducing 
his  personality.  For  no  one  was  less  greedy  of  ad- 
miration or  more  prodigal  of  encouragement.  Modern 
Painters  was  respectfully  dedicated  not  to  a  prince, 
not  to  a  great  writer,  but  to  the  "Landscape  painters 
of  England,  by  their  sincere  admirer."  "  Contrast  his 
career  as  a  critic,"  says  Mr.  Collingwood,  "with  that  of 
other  well-known  men,  the  Jeffries  and  the  Giffords, 
not  to  mention  writers  of  a  later  date ;   and  note  that 


54  HIS    PERSONALITY 

his  error  has  been  always  to  encourage  too  freely,  not 
to  discourage  hastily."  This  characteristic  will  hardly 
perhaps  commend  Ruskin  to  such  of  our  younger 
critics  as  are  only  too  ready  to  score  through  and 
through  with  their  pens  the  sum  of  an  artist's  lifelong 
labour ;  but  they  may  well  lay  it  to  heart.  If  by  any 
chance  Ruskin  believed  himself  in  duty  bound  to 
chastise  an  artist,  whose  private  character  he  honoured, 
he  would  chastise  him,  but  at  the  same  time  write  a 
private  letter  expressing  sorrow,  and  an  earnest  hope 
that  "this  may  make  no  difference  to  our  friendship." 
Whereby  he  brought  on  himself  the  following  reply 
from  a  certain  artist:  "My  dear  Ruskin,  the  first  time 
I  meet  you  I  shall  knock  you  down,  but  I  hope  that 
will  make  no  difference  to  our  friendship." 

The  fervour  and  the  simplicity  of  his  enthusiasm 
are  equally  proverbial.  Every  new  artist  whom  he 
studies,  every  important  book  which  he  analyses,  he 
desires  his  audience  to  accept  as  the  greatest  and  the 
most  perfect  of  all  time,  wholly  oblivious  that  he  has 
already  assigned  this  unique  throne  to  a  hundred  other 
such.  At  one  time  it  was  a  pleasantry  among  the 
philistines  of  Oxford  to  ask  the  admirers  of  Ruskin 
who  was  "  the  greatest  painter  in  the  world  "  for  the 
current  day?  "Yesterday  it  was  Carpaccio.  .  .  ." 
The  professor  would  rave  also  about  his  pupils'  works, 
attributing  to  them  a  thousand  imaginary  merits.  For 
instance  he  announced  that  he  had  met  a  young 
American  lady  who  could  draw  so  admirably,  that, 
having  previously  declared  no  woman  could  draw,  he 


III.   EXPRESSION  55 

was  now  tempted  to  believe  that  no  one  could  draw 
but  a  woman.  And  the  same  day  he  discovered  two 
young  Italians  so  deeply  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
their  Early  Schools  that  "  no  hand  like  theirs  had  been 
put  to  paper  since  Lippi  and  Lionardo." 

This  enthusiasm  vents  itself  sometimes  in  a  comic 
outburst.  The  disdain  of  the  Master  for  the  instruc- 
tion usually  given  in  national  schools  may  be  easily 
conceived, —  pedantic  dogmatism  without  thought  of 
promoting  manual  skill  or  exciting  artistic  taste  in  the 
workman !  One  day  a  mason,  employed  in  building 
some  addition  to  Brantwood,  was  in  need  of  money 
and  asked  for  an  advance.  Ruskin  gave  it  and  asked 
him  to  sign  a  receipt.  Much  hesitation  and  confusion 
followed  this  natural  request,  and  at  last  the  workman 
exclaimed  in  his  own  dialect:  "Aa  mun  put  maa 
mark  !  "  He  did  not  know  how  to  write ;  upon  which 
Ruskin  sprang  up,  held  out  his  two  hands  to  the 
astonished  mason  and  cried  :  "  I  am  proud  to  know 
you !  Now  I  understand  why  you  are  such  a  perfect 
workman." 

Some  of  these  unexpected  and  paradoxical  features 
might  almost  lead  one  to  imagine  that  the  Master  hid 
his  real  self  behind  a  mask,  and  that  his  originality 
was  a  cloak  in  which  he  enveloped  himself  after  the 
fashion  of  the  "aesthetes,"  whom  he  considered  per- 
sonal enemies,  and  strongly  and  continuously  con- 
demned. It  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  His  "  franchise," 
while  it  led  him  into  the  most  direct  contradictions 
and  the  strangest  exaggerations,  preserved  him  from  all 


56  HIS    PERSONALITY 

affectation.  No  man  could  have  lived  more  simply  than 
he  the  domestic  life  of  a  gentleman-farmer,  a  kind  and 
courteous  neighbour,  keeping  his  ice-house  cold  and 
his  hot-house  hot,  so  as  to  give  ice  or  grapes  to  the 
villagers  when  they  needed  it,  but  maintaining  nothing 
in  his  costume,  his  manners,  or  his  home  that  could 
surprise  them, — no  "  aesthetic  "  affectation  of  dress,  fur- 
niture, or  architecture.  He  wore  no  slouch  felt  hat 
like  William  Morris  nor  carried  in  his  hand  the  sun- 
flower of  a  Cyril  or  of  a  Vivian,  He  wished  everything 
to  be  beautiful  but  above  all  appropriate  to  its  use. 
"  Do  not  use  golden  ploughshares,  nor  bind  ledgers 
in  enamel.  Do  not  thrash  with  sculptured  flails :  nor 
put  bas-reliefs  on  millstones,"  said  he  to  his  disciples. 
He  lived  with  the  old  mahogany  furniture  of  his 
parents.  He  insisted  that  St.  George's  Mill  at  Laxey 
should  be  so  solid  and  comfortable  as  thoroughly  to 
fulfil  its  function  as  a  mill,  without  any  superfluous 
decoration.  His  own  house  at  Brantwood  is  simple, 
ample,  comfortable,  adorned  with  creeping  plants  but 
devoid  of  any  exquisiteness  of  style;  nothing  is  in 
bad  taste,  but  nowhere  is  a  symptom  of  affectation. 

His  simple  good-humour  and  personal  modesty  have 
struck  all  those  who  have  had  any  intimacy  with  him. 
"  I  will  tell  you,"  writes  Mr.  James  Smetham  to  a  friend, 
after  a  visit  to  Denmark  Hill,  in  1858, — "that  he  has 
a  large  house  with  a  lodge,  and  a  valet,  and  footman 
and  coachman,  and  grand  rooms  glittering  with  pictures, 
chiefly  Turner's,  and  that  his  father  and  mother  live 
with  him,  or  he  with  them.     His  father  is  a  fine  old 


III.  EXPRESSION  57 

gentleman,  who  has  a  lot  of  bushy  grey  hair,  and 
eyebrows  sticking  up  all  rough  and  knowing,  with  a 
comfortable  way  of  coming  up  to  you  with  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  and  making  you  comfortable,  and 
saying,  in  answer  to  your  remark,  that  'John's'  prose 
works  are  pretty  good.  His  mother  is  a  ruddy,  digni- 
fied, richly  dressed  old  gentlewoman  of  seventy-five, 
who  knows  Chamouni  better  than  Camberwell ;  evi- 
dently a  good  old  lady,  with  the  Christian  Treasury 
tossing  about  on  her  table.  She  puts  '  John  '  down 
and  holds  her  own  opinions,  and  flatly  contradicts 
him;  and  he  receives  all  her  opinions  with  a  soft 
reverence  and  gentleness  that  is  pleasant  to  witness. 
I  wish  I  could  reproduce  a  good  impression  of  '  John  ' 
for  you,  to  give  you  the  notion  of  his  '  perfect  gentle- 
ness and  lowlihood.'  He  certainly  bursts  out  with  a 
remark,  and  in  a  contradictious  way,  but  only  because 
he  believes  it,  with  no  air  of  dogmatism  or  conceit. 
He  is  different  at  home  from  that  which  he  is  in  a 
lecture  before  a  mixed  audience,  and  there  is  a  spiri- 
tual sweetness  in  the  half-timid  expression  of  his 
eyes ;  and  in  bowing  to  you,  as  in  taking  wine  with 
(if  I  heard  aright)  '  I  drink  to  thee,'  he  had  a  look 
that  has  followed  me,  a  look  bordering  on  tearful." 

But  in  public  lecturing  he  charmed  his  audience  by 
that  same  sort  of  personal  magnetism  that  made  him  so 
many  friends  amongst  the  London  workmen  and  the 
peasants  at  Coniston.  Look  for  instance  at  him  in  the 
professorial  chair  at  Oxford  in  1870.  For  some  time 
past  the  room  has  been  filled  to  overflowing,  every 
corner    carried    by    assault    by    students    who    have 


58  HIS    PERSONALITY 

deserted  the  other  classes  or  their  luncheons  or,  what 
seems  still  more  incredible,  their  cricket  in  order  to 
hear  him.  They  fill  the  windows,  are  standing  even 
on  the  cupboards.  Here  and  there  are  ladies,  occa- 
sionally as  numerous  as  the  students,  some  of  them 
Americans  who  have  crossed  the  Atlantic  to  see 
the  man  whom  Carlyle  calls  "  the  Ethereal  Ruskin." 
The  doors  remain  open,  blocked  by  the  crowd  over- 
flowing into  the  passage.  Now  the  Master  appears, 
and  all  Oxford  receives  him  with  acclamation.  Those 
who  have  never  seen  him,  raise  themselves  on  tiptoe 
and  catch  glimpses  of  a  tall  thin  figure  accompanied, 
like  a  philosopher  of  Athens,  by  a  train  of  disciples. 
This  is  not  perhaps  quite  orthodox,  but  Ruskin  seems 
to  occupy  the  Chair  of  Heterodoxy.  His  thick  hair 
is  long  and  fair,  his  eyes  are  clear  and  blue  and 
changing  as  a  rippling  sea,  his  mouth  is  fine,  ironic, 
and  more  mobile  than  a  resilient  bow,  his  complexion 
is  bright,  and  his  eyebrows  are  strongly  marked. 
The  whole  countenance  speaks  alike  of  enthusiasm 
and  of  sarcasm,  reflecting  equally  the  passion  which 
burns  or  the  contemplative  habit  which  soothes,  the 
face  of  a  fighter  and  of  a  seer.  He  bows  slightly 
and  ceremoniously,  recognises  friends  scattered  in 
the  audience,  disposes  around  him  a  quantity  of  odd 
and  whimsical  articles,  minerals,  coins,  drawings, 
photographs,  his  "diagrams,"  as  he  calls  them,  to 
be  used  in  his  demonstration ;  then  he  throws  aside 
his  long  black  professor's  gown,  and  his  academic 
character  disappears  with  it.  For  now  he  wears  a 
blue-skirted  coat  with  large  white  cuffs,   a  spreading 


III.   EXPRESSION  59 

"  Gladstone "  collar,  and  a  voluminous  blue  cravat, 
his  most  distinctive  mark  ;  quite  simply  dressed, 
however,  with  quiet  old-world  elegance  and  neither 
rings  nor  trinkets. 

He  begins,  and  at  first  it  seems  as  if  a  clergyman 
were  preaching  a  sermon  in  the  hall — for  he  is  reading 
passages  written  with  much  care,  marking  his  cadences, 
balancing  his  periods,  restraining  his  gesture,  and 
subduing  his  glance.  Little  by  little,  as  he  reads  over 
his  own  words,  he  grows  animated.  Exaltation  re- 
turns as  on  the  day  he  wrote  them.  He  forgets  the 
dead  pages  which  lie  before  him  on  the  table  and  looks 
at  the  living  faces  of  his  listeners.  Do  they  agree 
with  him  up  till  now  ?  He  cannot  go  on  without 
knowing.  He  asks  them,  makes  them  lift  their  hands 
in  sign  of  agreement,  and,  emboldened,  he  attacks  the 
heart  of  his  subject,  improvises,  pauses  to  show  a 
diagram.  It  may  be  the  head  of  a  lion  by  a  pseudo- 
classic  sculptor  with  which  he  compares  a  tiger's  bead, 
drawn  by  Millais  in  the  Zoological  Gardens.  At  the 
incongruous  sight  there  is  loud  laughter.  But  this 
is  not  enough,  the  Master  must  give  a  pictorial  de- 
scription of  things;  he  lets  himself  go  and  loses  all 
restraint.  If  be  is  speaking  of  birds  he  imitates  those 
which  fly  and  those  which  strut.  If  he  would  explain 
that  the  art  of  engraving  is  the  art  of  scratching,  he 
imitates  the  cat's  use  of  its  claws.  The  audience 
would  howl  down  any  one  else,  but  it  feels  that  here 
is  a  man  speaking  under  the  influence  of  an  idea,  not 
declaiming  but  crying    aloud    a    truth    which    he    has 


60  HIS    PERSONALITY 

discovered  but  a  moment  ago.  It  is  not  of  himself  that 
he  makes  an  exhibition  but  of  his  subject.  He  heaps 
observation  on  observation,  he  multiplies  arguments. 
Botany,  geology,  exegesis,  philology,  all  is  good  which 
serves  to  prove  his  thesis.  Now  he  no  longer  pleads 
but  prophesies,  and  those  who  are  taking  notes  give 
up  co-ordinating  them.  He  has  lost  his  thread  but 
he  has  gained  his  audience.  The  confused  succession 
of  lucid  and  ingenious  thoughts  at  once  puzzles  and 
enthrals.  What  is  it — instinct  ?  science  ?  imposture  ? 
genius  ?  Who  can  say  ?  But  we  listen  and  de- 
lightedly follow  this  jolting  jerking  road,  which  is 
always  winding  and  at  each  turn  opens  to  us  some 
new  valley,  some  unexpected  horizon.  At  last  we 
seem  to  be  near  the  summit ;  as  we  climb  the  view 
opens  more  and  more,  and  amidst  loud  applause  the 
lecture  which  began  with  microscopic  details  ends  with 
a  grand  first  principle.  From  the  humble  village 
hidden  in  the  hollow  of  a  valley  our  guide,  with  the 
edelweiss  for  his  badge,  has  conducted  us  by  a 
thousand  windings  to  a  lofty  peak  whence  we  may 
look  out  over  all  a  world. 

But  one  day  the  guide  himself  halted  at  the  foot  of 
the  mountains  he  had  so  often  ascended.  And  now 
let  us  look  at  the  old  man,  whose  voice  resounds  no 
longer  in  public,  in  his  retreat  at  Brantwood,  among 
the  rocks  and  wild  wood  {brant-wood)  on  the  edge  of 
Coniston  Lake,  where  he  went  to  live  after  the  death 
of  his  parents  because  nothing  there  could  trouble 
his  dreams  :  "  Ruskin,"  writes  Mrs.  Thackeray  Ritchie, 


III.   EXPRESSION  6 1 

"seems  to  me  less  picturesque  as  a  young  man  than 
now  in  his  later  days.  Perhaps  grey  waving  hair 
may  be  more  becoming  than  darker  locks,  but  the 
speaking  earnest  eyes  that  must  have  been  the  same, 
as  well  as  the  tones  of  that  delightful  voice,  with  its 
slightly  foreign  pronunciation  of  the  'r,'  which  seemed 
so  familiar  again  when  it  welcomed  us  to  Coniston 
long,  long  after.  Meeting  thus  after  fifteen  years  I 
was  struck  by  the  change  for  the  better  in  him ;  by 
the  bright,  radiant,  sylvan  look  which  a  man  gains 
by  living  among  woods  and  hills  and  pure  breeze. 
.  .  .  That  evening,  the  first  we  ever  spent  at  Brant- 
wood,  the  rooms  were  lighted  by  slow  sunset  cross- 
lights  from  the  lake  without.  Mrs.  Severn  sat  in 
her  place  behind  a  silver  urn,  while  the  master  of 
the  house,  with  his  back  to  the  window,  was  dis- 
pensing such  cheer,  spiritual  and  temporal,  as  those 
who  have  been  his  guests  will  best  realise,  —  fine 
wheaten  bread  and  Scotch  cakes  in  many  a  crisp 
circlet  and  crescent,  and  trout  from  the  lake,  and 
strawberries  such  as  grow  only  on  the  Brantwood 
slopes.  Were  these  cups  of  tea  only,  or  cups  of 
fancy,  feeling,  inspiration  ?  And  as  we  crunched  and 
quaffed  we  listened  to  a  certain  strain  not  easily  to 
be  described,  changing  from  its  graver  first  notes  to 
the  sweetest  and  most  charming  vibrations.  Who 
can  ever  recall  a  good  talk  that  is  over?  You  can 
remember  the  room  in  which  it  was  held,  the  look  of 
the  chairs,  but  the  actual  talk  takes  wings  and  flies 
away.  .  .   .  The   text   was    that   strawberries   should 


62  HIS    PERSONALITY 

be  ripe  and  sweet,  and  we  munched  and  marked 
it  then  and  there ;  that  there  should  be  a  standard 
of  fitness  applied  to  every  detail  of  life ;  and  this 
standard,  with  a  certain  gracious  malice,  wit,  hospi- 
tality, and  remorselessness,  he  began  to  apply  to  one 
thing  and  another,  to  dress,  to  food,  to  books." 

And  already  legends  have  grown  up  around  the 
great  charmer.  It  is  said  that  one  day  he  entered  a 
jeweller's  shop  in  London,  and  being  recognised,  all 
the  precious  stones  were  spread  before  him  and  he 
was  begged  to  reveal  their  mysteries.  And  standing 
there  in  the  midst  of  the  listening  ladies,  the  author 
of  Deucalion  spoke.  He  spoke  with  the  knowledge 
of  the  Dwarf  who  stole  the  Rhine-gold  but  with  the 
charm  of  the  Rhine-maidens  who  guarded  it.  He  told 
his  hearers  the  secret  of  the  ruby — in  heraldry  gules — 
which  is  the  Persian  rose,  colour  of  love  and  joy,  and 
of  all  life  on  earth,  the  flower  from  whose  bud  was 
modelled  the  alabaster  box  of  precious  ointment  that 
the  Magdalen  poured  over  the  feet  of  the  Saviour. 
And  the  secret  of  the  sapphire — in  heraldry  azure — 
which  is  the  type  of  joy  and  love  in  heaven,  a  stone 
of  one  nature  with  the  ruby  but  another  colour.  I 
will  lay  thy  foundations  with  sapphires,  says  the 
Scripture.  And  the  secret  too  of  the  pearl,  which  is 
the  subduing  of  light,  symbol  of  patience,  colour  of 
the  dove  that  carries  the  news  that  the  waters  are 
abating — the  marguerite  in  Norman  heraldry — grey, 
an  inferior  colour  in  arms,  but  of  great  price — for 
humility  opens  the  gates  of  Paradise,  and  we  are  told 


III.    EXPRESSION  63 

that  though  the  walls  are  of  jasper  each  door  is  a 
pearl.  He  told  of  the  dark  and  gradual  birth  of  gems 
in  the  depths  of  the  earth  or  the  sea,  and  then  turning 
towards  the  fine  ladies  he  spoke  to  them  to  this 
purpose : — 

"  Are  we  right  in  setting  our  hearts  on  these  stones, 
loving  them,  holding  them  precious  ?  Yes,  assuredly, 
provided  it  is  the  stone  we  love,  and  the  stone  we 
think  precious;  and  not  ourselves  we  love,  and  our- 
selves we  think  precious.  To  worship  a  black  stone, 
because  it  fell  from  heaven,  may  not  be  wholly  wise ; 
but  it  is  half-way  to  being  wise ;  half-way  to  worship 
heaven  itself.  Or,  to  worship  a  white  stone  because 
it  is  dug  with  difficulty  out  of  the  earth,  and  to  put 
it  into  a  log  of  wood,  and  say  the  wood  sees  with 
it,  may  not  be  wholly  wise ;  but  it  is  half-way  to 
being  wise;  half-way  to  believing  that  the  God  who 
makes  earth  so  bright,  may  also  brighten  the  eyes 
of  the  blind.  It  is  no  true  folly  to  think  that  stones 
see,  but  it  is  to  think  that  eyes  do  not ;  it  is  no  true 
folly  to  think  that  stones  live,  but  it  is  to  think  that 
souls  die ;  it  is  no  true  folly  to  believe  that,  in  the  day 
of  the  making  up  of  jewels,  the  palace  walls  shall  be 
compact  of  life  above  their  corner-stone,  but  it  is  to 
believe  that  in  the  day  of  dissolution  the  souls  of 
the  globe  shall  be  shattered  with  its  emerald,  and  no 
spirit  survive,  unterrified,  above  the  ruin.  Yes,  pretty 
ladies,  love  the  stones,  and  take  care  of  them ;  but 
love  your  own  souls  better,  and  take  care  of  thou,  for 
the  day  when  the  Master  shall  make  up  His  jewels." 


64  HIS  PERSONALITY 

Leaving  words  such  as  the  jeweller's  fair  clients  had 
never  heard  at  rout  or  ball  yet  ringing  in  their  ears,  the 
prophet  was  gone.  He  had  marched  off  to  a  pastry- 
cook's, where  still  he  talked  on  while  he  lunched, 
and  those  present  left  their  sandwiches  and  their  buns 
and  grouped  themselves  silently  about  him  to  receive 
the  spiritual  food  which  he  was  pleased  to  dispense. 

So  tradition  will  have  it  that  he  taught  not  only  in 
the  synagogues,  but  also  in  the  public  places  in  the 
midst  of  profane  life  and  vulgar  cares.     It  tells  us 
also  that  he  appeared   suddenly  wherever  there  was 
an  artist  soul  to  be  comforted,  or  a  flame  of  enthusiasm 
to  be  kept  alight.     One  morning  in  the  Louvre  two 
diligent   readers  of  his  works,  who  had   never  seen 
him,    were   standing    before    the    Walk    to   Emmaus 
which  one  of  them   was  endeavouring  to  copy.     An 
old   man  approached   and   entered    into  conversation, 
and  speaking  of  the  picture  of  Rembrandt,  confessed 
that  he  had  once  copied  it  himself.     He  grew  excited, 
renewed  his  youth  in  recollection  of  the  heroic  days 
of  art,  and  a   gleam  which  thrilled  the  two  disciples 
passed  across  his  eyes.     He  invited  them  to  breakfast 
at  his  hotel,  and   only  in  the  breaking  of  bread  did 
they  discover  that  they  were  in  the  presence  of  the 
Master.     It    was   Ruskin.     And   surely  they    said  to 
each   other  as  they  went  away,  like  the  pilgrims  in 
the  old  picture  they  were  looking  at  two  hours  before, 
"  did  not  our  hearts  burn  within  us  while  he  talked 
with  us,"  and  opened  to  us  the  Holy  Gospel  of  Art  ? 
It  is  related  also  that  one  night  at  Rome  Ruskin 


III.   EXPRESSION  65 

dreamed  that  he  had  become  a  Franciscan  monk,  and 
that  he  had  devoted  himself  to  that  great  community 
which  he  had  extolled  in  his  chapter  on  Santa  Croce. 
A  little  while  after  this  dream,  as  he  was  going  up 
the  steps  of  the  Pincio,  he  was  accosted  by  an  old 
beggar  sitting  on  the  steps.  He  gave  him  alms  and 
was  about  to  continue  his  way  when  the  beggar 
seized  his  hand  and  kissed  it.  Ruskin  bent  over  and 
embraced  the  old  man.  The  next  day  the  latter,  with 
tears  in  his  eyes,  came  to  see  him  in  all  his  rags,  and 
begged  him  to  accept  a  precious  relic,  a  piece  of  brown 
cloth  which  he  assured  him  had  belonged  to  the  robe 
of  St.  Francis.  Was  not  this  the  saint  himself,  says 
a  biographer,  who  appeared  to  one  who  had  learned 
of  him  to  interpret  the  voices  of  Nature  ?  Be  that 
as  it  may,  Ruskin  remembered  his  dream  and  went 
at  once  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  convent  of  the  saint 
at  Assisi,  dreaming  of  great  things  to  be  done.  But 
he  found  Assisi  haymaking,  so  in  the  end  he  also 
made  hay. 

He  could  have  chosen  no  more  fitting  patron-saint, 
and  we  can  compare  him  to  no  purer  model.  Like 
St.  Francis,  Ruskin  has  performed  some  very  pretty 
miracles.  He  made  his  philosophy  heard  not  indeed 
of  the  birds  but  of  smart  ladies — perhaps  the  greater 
feat.  He  caused  no  roses  to  spring  in  the  snow,  but 
he  grafted  on  cold  British  souls  rosy  flowers  of  en- 
thusiasm upon  which  one  chances  still.  He  did  not 
order  the  seasons,  but  once,  when  he  had  asked  the 
painters  to  paint  apple-trees  in  bloom,  the  walls  of  an 


66  HIS    PERSONALITY 

Academy  were  apple-blossom  from  end  to  end.  Such 
at  any  rate  are  the  tales,  and  the  tender  recollection 
that  the  Master  has  left  with  some,  the  rapturous 
smiles  he  has  called  to  the  lips  of  others,  have  perhaps 
given  rise  to  many  such  legends.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
it  is  in  any  case  not  the  common  lot  even  for  great 
men  to  be  veiled,  while  yet  alive,  in  the  gracious  cloud 
of  legend  ;  and  only  on  the  highest  summits  for  the 
most  part  are  the  mists  wont  to  gather. 

Will  not  this  "  Old-Man  of  Coniston,"  think  you, 
loom  loftier  yet  when  death  has  added  her  supreme 
and  hoi}'  darkness  to  the  profane  mists  of  fiction  ? 
It  may  be  then  that  the  countless  tourists  for  whom 
Ruskin  has  made  bread  of  the  stones  of  Venice, 
and  flowers  of  the  jewels  of  Pallas  Athene,  will 
bethink  them  to  visit  the  shrine,  where  he  lived 
who  woke  so  many  souls  to  life,  and  where  shone 
the  fire  whence  so  many  torches  took  their  flame.  It 
may  be  also  that  those  very  railroads,  which  he 
fought  so  obstinatel}',  will  bring  worshippers  of  the 
Beautiful  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  And  even 
it  may  be  that  if  ugliness  eventually  should  triumph, 
as  everything  seems  to  augur,  with  science  for  its 
accomplice  and  political  economy  for  its  ally,  we  shall 
deem  this  man  but  a  hero  of  fable,  who  alone  against 
all  a  world,  fought  not  for  Truth,  who  has  her  pro- 
phets, nor  for  Justice,  who  has  her  apostles,  nor  for 
Religion,  who  has  her  martyrs,  but  for  an  ideal  that 
has  had  no  other  champion  and  perhaps  will  know 
no  other  victory — the  ideal  of  the  Beautiful. 


PART    II 
HIS    WORDS 


PART    II 
HIS     WORDS 

Of  the  many  surprises  which  Mr.  Ruskin's  personality 
occasions,  none  is  greater  than  his  popularity.  A 
nineteenth-century  philosopher,  whose  works  are  read 
by  the  masses,  is  not  common  clay.  But  when  that 
philosopher  happens  also  to  be  an  asstheticist,  works 
of  art  forming  the  subject  or  the  pretext  of  his  writings, 
the  phenomenon  is  altogether  amazing.  For  of  all 
literature,  art-criticism  is  by  a  strange  irony  just  that 
on  which  authors  like  best  to  embark,  but  which 
readers  most  distrust,  convinced  as  they  have  been 
by  long  and  conclusive  experience  that  they  will  find 
it  to  consist  mostly  in  a  superficial  and  pedantic 
verbiage.  And  if  in  order  to  explain  to  some  extent 
the  popularity  of  Ruskin's  books  and  the  charm  they 
have  even  for  women  and  children,  we  add  that  in 
reality  they  do  not  all  deal  with  questions  of  art,  but 
often  also  with  the  most  stirring  problems  in  public 
economy,  the  phenomenon  becomes  a  miracle,  and  the 
explanation  more  strange  than  the  fact. 

The  better  to  find  a  more  satisfactory  explanation, 
let  us  hear  Ruskin's  own  words,  and  let  us  listen  to 

these,  moreover,  not  with  the  intention  of  discovering 

69 


70  HIS    WORDS 

the  guiding  thought  which  runs  through  and  co- 
ordinates them,  but,  for  the  moment,  without  system 
and  at  random,  so  as  to  detect  the  new  processes,  the 
manifold  aspects,  the  hidden  and  devious  ways  of  the 
method  whereby  Ruskin  has  inclined  the  least  artistic 
people  in  the  world  towaids  aesthetical  thought,  and 
this  religion  of  beauty.  Let  us  mark  them  all,  words 
alike  of  his  twentieth  year  and  words  of  his  seventy- 
sixth  year,  words  persuasive,  words  romantic,  words 
passionate.  Ruskin  is  at  once  man  of  letters,  orator, 
and  guide :  and  there  are  words  of  his  that  float  back 
into  the  memory  by  the  fireside  in  winter  when  the 
logs  crackle  on  the  hearth,  words  spoken  to  an  audi- 
ence thrilled  by  the  inward  excitement  of  the  speaker, 
and  again  words  to  be  read  only  at  the  foot  of  ancient 
monuments,  on  the  steps  of  a  campanile  or  the  slope 
of  a  mountain,  words  to  teach  the  truth,  words  to 
evoke  the  past, — words  to  charm  the  fancy,  words  to 
touch  the  heart  and  hold  it  spell-bound  beneath  a 
dome  which  but  veils  infinity,  or  by  a  tomb  which 
hides  but  nothingness.  ...  If  we  analyse  some  of 
these  words  we  may  perhaps  come  to  understand  why 
so  many  have  listened  to  the  voice. 


CHAPTER   I 

ANALYSIS 

THERE  is  a  story  that  in  1 85 1  some  Scotch  farmers, 
seeing  in  the  windows  of  a  bookshop  a  pamphlet 
entitled  Notes  on  the  Construction  of  Sheep/olds, 
by  John  Ruskin,  and  thinking  to  find  some  useful 
advice  in  the  matter  of  herding  sheep,  expended  two 
shillings  and  carried  off  the  pamphlet.  They  found 
that  they  had  purchased  instead  a  theological  thesis 
which  inculcated  the  doctrine  of  "  One  Flock  One 
Shepherd,"  and  ended  by  expressing  the  hope  that 
England  might  become  a  New  Jerusalem. 

Thus  the  very  title  of  a  work  by  Ruskin  challenges 
attention  and  sets  logic  in  disarray.  The  banner  that 
he  displays  is  equally  splendid  and  incomprehensible. 
What  more  beautiful  ensign  than  Deucalion,  a  title 
so  concise  that  it  serves  as  a  telegraphic  address 
for  his  publisher,  what  more  beautiful  than  Queen 
of  the  Air,  Munera  Pulveris,  Love's  Meinie,  the 
Crown  of  Wild  Olive,  Sesame  and  Lilies,  Aratra 
Peutelici,  Ariadne  Florentina,  On  the  Old  Road,  and 
Our  Fathers  have  told  its?  But  what  less  informing  ? 
Who  can  guess  what  will  be  found  under  these 
many-coloured  flags  that   flutter  in   the  wind  ?     And 


72  HIS    WORDS 

if  we  pass  to  the  descriptive  sub-titles,  what  en- 
lightenment shall  we  gain  from  those  of  Sesame 
and  Lilies — I.  "King's  Treasuries,"  II.  "Queen's 
Gardens,"  III.  "The  Mystery  of  Life  and  its  Arts?" 
or  from  that  of  Hortus  Inclusus — "The  Message  from 
the  Wood  to  the  Garden  "  ?  But  because  the  human 
mind  is  averse  to  leaving  a  fact  or  a  strange  word 
unexplained,  the  key  is  sought  and  not  infrequently 
found.  Sometimes  the  significance  of  the  title  is 
vouchsafed  by  the  preface,  as  in  Unto  this  Last; 
sometimes  we  must  wait  till  the  last  page,  as  in 
Munera  Pulveris  ;  here  it  is  taken  from  an  Ode  of 
Horace  and  there  from  a  Gospel  parable.  6\  Mark's 
Rest  is  an  allusion  to  the  relics  in  the  church  at 
Venice,  and  Love's  Meinie,  an  essay  in  ornithology,  is 
owed  to  a  verse  of  the  Roman  de  la  Rose  where  it  is 
said  of  Love  il  etait  tout  convert  doisiaulx.  At  other 
times  the  title  is  borrowed  from  an  old  Florentine 
engraving  of  the  Labyrinth  (Ariadne  Florentind)  and 
sometimes  from  a  poem  of  Keats  (A  Joy  for  Ever). 
Ruskin  himself  felt  how  baffling  some  of  his  titles 
were,  and  tried  to  put  his  readers  on  the  track.  In 
Fors  Clavigera — a  series  of  monthly  letters  addressed 
to  workmen  from  1871  to  1884 — there  are  three  pages 
devoted  to  this  thankless  task,  at  the  end  of  which  one 
begins  to  realise  that  Fors,  the  root  word  of  "  Fortune," 
means  "  Destiny,"  that  Clavi-  means  the  key  needed  to 
open  the  door  of  Truth  (clavis),  as  well  as  the  club  of 
Hercules  needed  to  war  against  evil  (clava)  and  the 
helm  which   keeps  us  in  the  course  of  life  (clavus) ; 


I.   ANALYSIS  73 

finally  the  -gera  from  Gero  means  "  that  which  carries." 
But  what  is  the  use  of  all  these  etymologies?  The 
titles  of  the  works  of  a  writer  who  is  for  ever  cham- 
pioning Art  against  the  modern  social  state  are 
battle-cries.  As  long  as  they  make  themselves  heard 
it  does  not  signify  what  they  mean.  How  many  of 
those  who  rushed  to  the  assault  crying  "  Montjoie  et 
Saint  Denis  !  "  knew  the  meaning  of  their  cry  ? 

If  after  scrutinising  the  flag  we  pass  to  the  goods 
which  it  covers,  we  are  not  less  outraged  by  their 
disorder  than  attracted  by  their  riches.  No  coherent 
scheme,  no  consistent  arrangement,  at  the  utmost — "  a 
tendency  like  the  law  of  form  in  crystal." 

"  The  subject  which  I  want  to  bring  before  you  is 
now  branched  and  worse  than  branched,  reticulated  in 
so  many  directions  that  I  hardly  know  which  shoot 
of  it  to  trace  or  which  knot  to  lay  hold  of  first."  So 
Ruskin  lays  hold  of  everything  at  once,  and  at  a  bound 
you  are  in  the  heart  of  the  subject.  Stunned  however 
by  the  shock,  you  do  not  exactly  see  what  that  sub- 
ject is.  Pitchforked  into  the  midst  of  this  vast  display 
of  ideas,  you  branch  off  in  all  directions,  fearing  to 
lose  yourself  and  yet  charmed  to  be  rambling.  There 
is  no  lack  of  guides  or  of  labels.  Ruskin  uses  these 
more  than  any  other  writer;  each  phrase  is  numbered, 
and  Ruskinians  say  among  themselves,  "  Do  you  re- 
member Paragraph  25  of  the  6th  chapter,  Volume 
II.,  Stones  of  Venice?"  or  perhaps,  "  Let  us  think  over 
Paragraph  213  of  Aratra  Pentelici."  Everywhere 
there  are    partitions,  divisions,  compartments,    which 


74  HIS    WORDS 

would  appear  to  divide  the  subjects  one  from  another. 
But  put  no  faith  in  them.  Some  chapters  are  re- 
printed in  several  different  volumes :  there  are  others 
which,  anticipating  those  that  follow  or  going  back 
on  those  that  have  preceded  them,  upset  the  whole 
economy  of  the  volume.  "  This,"  he  acknowledges  from 
time  to  time,  "  belongs  to  another  part  of  my  subject." 
His  books  are  as  entangled  as  our  Budgets,  and  their 
composition  as  perplexing  as  those  time-tables  which 
forlorn  travellers  strive  to  unravel  in  the  railway 
stations. 

"  A  friend  in  whose  judgment  I  greatly  trust,  remon- 
strated scornfully  with  me,  the  other  day,  on  the  de- 
sultory character  of  Fors ;  and  pleaded  with  me  for  the 
writing  of  an  arranged  book  instead.  But  he  might  as 
well  plead  with  a  birch  tree  growing  out  of  a  crag,  to 
arrange  its  boughs  beforehand.  The  winds  and  floods 
will  arrange  them  according  to  their  wild  liking ;  and 
all  that  the  tree  has  to  do,  or  can  do,  is  to  grow  gaily, 
if  it  may  be ;  sadly,  if  gaiety  be  impossible  ;  and  let  the 
black  jags  and  scars  rend  the  rose-white  of  its  trunk 
where  Fors  shall  choose." 

Certainly  in  his  early  works,  Modern  Painters, 
Seven  Lcunps  of  Architecture ,  and  Stones  of  Venice, 
there  is  some  perceptible  attempt  at  composition  even 
if  it  is  unskilful,  and  his  materials  are  classified,  if  not 
in  order,  at  any  rate  with  some  kind  of  symmetry. 
But  after  he  has  laid  these  mighty  foundations  of  his 
life's  work  all  plan  vanishes  and  his  composition  be- 
comes wholly  amorphous.     At  all  seasons  Ruskin  will 


I.  ANALYSIS  75 

speak  to  you  of  all  subjects,  "Of  Many  Things" 
indeed,  as  says  the  sub-title  of  a  volume  of  Modern 
Painters,  a  title  which  excited  no  little  amusement,  but 
yet  is  the  only  one  at  all  exact  that  he  has  assigned. 
If  you  expect  a  book  of  his  to  give  any  single  con- 
nected thesis  on  a  definite  subject,  if  you  have  not 
made  up  your  mind,  ere  opening  it,  to  abandon  all 
desire  of  logic  and  all  instinct  of  classification,  you  had 
best  not  venture  into  the  marvellous  maze.  Sesame 
would  not  serve  to  open  the  door,  nor  would  Ariadne 
supply  a  guiding  thread. 

Within  the  maze  we  adventure  ourselves  never- 
theless, because  although  the  whole  is  confused,  each 
particular  idea  to  be  distinguished  therein  shows 
clearer  and  sharper  cut  than  in  any  ordinary  treatise 
on  ^Esthetic.  We  are  not  invited  to  consider  such 
axioms  as  the  following :  "  The  object  of  Art  is  to 
discover  the  Me  in  external  objects,"  or  Art  is  "the 
interpretation  of  the  beauty  of  nature  and  the  beauty 
of  force  by  means  of  their  most  expressive  signs ; " 
nor  are  we  asked  to  draw  long  deductions  from  the 
thought,  "  The  Beautiful  is  the  splendour  of  the 
True " — propositions  which  the  reader  is  the  more 
careful  not  to  contest  in  that  he  does  not  in  the  least 
understand  them.  No.  A  simple  and  concrete  thesis 
is  advanced,  for  example  this  : — 

"  The  art  of  Bellini  is  centrally  represented  by  two 
pictures  of  Venice  ;  one,  the  Madonna  in  the  Sacristy 
of  the  Frari  with  two  saints  beside  her,  and  two  angels 


76  HIS    WORDS 

at  her  feet ;  the  second,  the  Madonna  with  four  saints, 
over  the  second  altar  of  San  Zaccaria. 

"Observe  respecting  them — 

"  First,  they  are  both  wrought  in  entirely  consistent 
and  permanent  material.  The  gold  in  them  is  repre- 
sented by  painting,  not  laid  on  with  real  gold.  And 
the  painting  is  so  secure,  that  four  hundred  years  have 
produced  on  it,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  no  harmful  change 
whatever,  of  any  kind. 

"  Secondly,  the  figures  in  both  are  in  perfect  peace. 
No  action  takes  place  except  that  the  little  angels  are 
playing  on  musical  instruments,  but  with  uninter- 
rupted and  effortless  gesture,  as  in  a  dream.  A  choir 
of  singing  angels  by  La  Robbia  or  Donatello  would  be 
intent  on  their  music,  or  eagerly  rapturous  in  it,  as 
in  temporary  exertion  :  in  the  little  choirs  of  cherubs 
by  Luini  in  the  Adoration  of  the  Shepherds,  in  the 
Cathedral  of  Como,  we  even  feel  by  their  dutiful 
anxiety  that  there  might  be  danger  of  a  false  note  if 
they  were  less  attentive.  But  Bellini's  angels,  even 
the  youngest,  sing  as  calmly  as  the  Fates  weave. 

"  Let  me  at  once  point  out  to  you  that  this  calm- 
ness is  the  attribute  of  the  entirely  highest  class  of 
art :  the  introduction  of  strong  or  violently  emotional 
incident  is  at  once  a  confession  of  inferiority. 

"  Those  are  the  two  first  attributes  of  the  best  art. 
Faultless  workmanship,  and  perfect  serenity ;  a  contin- 
uous not  momentary  action.  You  are  to  be  interested 
in  the  living  creatures;  not  in  what  is  happening  to 
them. 


I.  ANALYSIS  77 

"  Then  tthe  third  attribute  of  the  best  art  is  that  it 
compels  you  to  think  of  the  spirit  of  the  creature,  and 
therefore  of  its  face,  more  than  of  its  body. 

"And  the  fourth  is  that  in  the  face,  you  shall  be  led  to 
see  only  beauty  or  joy ; — never  vileness,  vice,  or  pain. 

"  Those  are  the  four  essentials  of  the  greatest  art.  I 
repeat  them,  they  are  easily  learned. 

"  I.  Faultless  and  permanent  workmanship. 

"  2.  Serenity  in  state,  or  action. 

"  3.  The  Face  principal,  not  the  bod}r. 

"  4.  And  the  Face  free  from  either  vice  or  pain." 

We  have  here  a  clear  thesis.  Every  reader  knows 
what  position  he  has  to  meet,  what  plastic  practical 
results  and  what  modifications  of  his  judgment  and 
future  work  the  side  he  takes  will  entail.  He  foresees 
that  Michael  Angelo  with  his  studies  of  outline,  Raphael 
who  sets  on  bodies  so  eloquent,  heads  so  indifferent  and 
so  mute,  Ribera  with  his  anguished  faces, — all  these 
will  be  proscribed  by  this  definition  of  great  art ;  while 
on  the  contrary  the  primitives  and  certain  artists  of 
the  earlier  Renaissance  will  be  ordained  as  models. 
And  if  so  be  he  cares  first  and  foremost  for  the  move- 
ment of  limbs  displayed,  for  the  human  figure  hurtling 
through  space,  for  the  telling  effect  of  wrinkles,  and 
the  contraction  of  facial  muscles,  he  will  range  himself 
against  the  aestheticist.  But  in  so  ranging  himself 
against  the  latter's  thesis  he  at  any  rate  pays  homage 
to  his  lucidity.  For  he  can  only  dissent  in  that  he  has 
understood. 


78  HIS    WORDS 

Having  so  understood  he  will  follow  easily  when 
the  professor  of  Fine  Art,  in  order  to  defend  his 
thesis,  would  take  him  still  deeper  into  the  subject, 
and,  to  make  his  own  aesthetical  impressions  clear, 
shall  disentangle  them  by  analysis.  For  example 
the  thesis  in  one  of  Ruskin's  books  is  this,  that  the 
worst  form  of  deceptive  architecture  is  deception  of 
handiwork,  that  is  to  say  the  substitution  of  castings 
fashioned  by  machinery  for  hand-made  work.  This 
deception  is  dishonest,  he  says.  But  why  ?  Demand 
of  yourself  how  it  first  impressed  you — and  you  will 
learn. 

"  Ornament  has  two  entirely  distinct  sources  ot 
agreeableness :  one,  that  of  the  abstract  beauty  of  its 
forms,  which,  for  the  present,  we  will  suppose  to  be  the 
same  whether  they  come  from  the  hand  or  the  machine ; 
the  other,  the  sense  of  human  labour  and  care  spent 
upon  it.  How  great  this  latter  influence  we  may  per- 
haps judge,  by  considering  that  there  is  not  a  cluster 
of  weeds  growing  in  any  cranny  of  ruin,  which  has 
not  a  beauty  in  all  respects  nearly  equal,  and,  in  some, 
immeasurably  superior,  to  that  of  the  most  elaborate 
sculpture  of  its  stones :  and  that  all  our  interest  in  the 
carved  work,  our  sense  of  its  richness,  though  it  is 
tenfold  less  rich  than  the  knots  of  grass  beside  it ;  of 
its  delicacy,  though  it  is  a  thousandfold  less  delicate ; 
of  its  admirableness,  though  a  millionfold  less  admir- 
able ;  results  from  our  consciousness  of  its  being  the 
work  of  poor,  clumsy,  toilsome  man.  Its  true  delight- 
fulness  depends  on  our  discovering  in  it  the  record  of 


I.  ANALYSIS  79 

thoughts,  and  intents,  and  trials,  and  heart-breakings — 
of  recoveries  and  joyfulnesses  of  success  ;  all  this  can 
be  traced  by  a  practised  eye ;  but,  granting  it  even 
obscure,  it  is  presumed  or  understood ;  and  in  that  is 
the  worth  of  the  thing,  just  as  much  as  the  worth 
of  anything  else  we  call  precious.  The  worth  of  a 
diamond  is  simply  the  understanding  of  the  time  it 
must  take  to  look  for  it  before  it  is  found  ;  and  the 
worth  of  an  ornament  is  the  time  it  must  take  before 
it  can  be  cut.  It  has  an  intrinsic  value  besides,  which 
the  diamond  has  not ;  (for  a  diamond  has  no  more  real 
beauty  than  a  piece  of  glass ;)  but  I  do  not  speak  of 
that  at  present ;  I  place  the  two  on  the  same  ground  ; 
and  I  suppose  that  the  hand-wrought  ornament  can 
no  more  be  generally  known  from  machine  work,  than 
a  diamond  can  be  known  from  paste;  nay,  that  the 
latter  may  deceive,  for  a  moment,  the  mason's,  as  the 
other  the  jeweller's,  eye ;  and  that  it  can  be  detected 
only  by  the  closest  examination.  Yet  exactly  as  a 
woman  of  feeling  would  not  wear  false  jewels,  so 
would  a  builder  of  honour  disdain  false  ornaments." 

You  will  now  understand  how  such  and  such  a  work 
appeals  to  you.  But  that  is  not  enough.  You  must 
also  understand  the  intention  of  him  who  created  it. 
Not  that  you  should  assign  to  him  ideas  and  feelings 
which  in  truth  he  had  not — that  Ruskin  holds  to  be 
mere  puerility  though  it  was  the  outcome  of  all  the 
energies  of  a  whole  school  of  criticism  during  fifty 
years.  Rather  you  should  seek  by  thorough  study 
of  the  artist's  works  to  determine  simply  to  what  end 


80  HIS    WORDS 

his  effort  was  directed.  In  order  that  we  may  be 
convinced  of  the  error  of  modern  architects,  who 
substitute  machine  work  for  the  hand  of  man,  Ruskin 
invites  us  to  examine  ourselves,  and  ourselves  to  give 
(  an  exact  account  of  out  own  feelings  in  presence  of 
a  work  of  art,  in  short,  in  a  manner  to  make  our 
aesthetical  confession  of  faith.  \  In  order  really  to  feel 
the  greatness  of  the  ancient  artists — the  Greek  for 
instance  —  of  their  myths,  and  of  their  religious 
imaginings,  there  is  something  yet  more  difficult  to 
be  done — namely  to  reconstruct  the  psychology  of 
their  art.  Ruskin  compares  the  Greek  to  a  child  and 
asks  himself  what  the  child  sees,  what  he  seeks,  what 
he  desires,  and  of  what  he  dreams. 

"  So  far  as  I  have  myself  observed,  the  distinctive 
character  of  a  child  is  to  live  always  in  the  tangible 
present,  having  little  pleasure  in  memory,  and  being 
utterly  impatient  and  tormented  by  anticipation  :  weak 
alike  in  reflection  and  forethought,  but  having  an 
intense  possession  of  the  actual  present,  down  to  the 
shortest  moments  and  least  objects  of  it;  possessing 
it,  indeed,  so  intensely  that  the  sweet  childish  days  are 
as  long  as  twenty  days  will  be;  and  setting  all  the 
faculties  of  heart  and  imagination  on  little  things,  so  as 
to  be  able  to  make  anything  out  of  them  he  chooses. 
Confined  to  a  little  garden,  he  does  not  imagine  him- 
self somewhere  else,  but  makes  a  great  garden  out  of 
that ;  possessed  of  an  acorn-cup,  he  will  not  despise 
it  and  throw  it  away,  and  covet  a  golden  one  in  its 
stead :  it  is  the  adult  who  does  so.     The  child  keeps 


I.   ANALYSIS  8  i 

his  acorn-cup  as  a  treasure,  and  makes  a  golden  one 
out  of  it  in  his  mind;  so  that  the  wondering  grown-up 
person  standing  beside  him  is  always  tempted  to  ask 
concerning  his  treasures,  not,  'What  would  you  have 
more  than  these  ? '  but  'What  possibly  can  you  see  in 
these  ? '  for,  to  the  bystander,  there  is  a  ludicrous  and 
incomprehensible  inconsistency  between  the  child's 
words  and  the  reality.  The  little  thing  tells  him 
gravel}',  holding  up  the  acorn-cup,  that  '  this  is  a 
queen's  crown/  or  'a  fairy's  boat/  and,  with  beauti- 
ful effrontery,  expects  him  to  believe  the  same.  But 
observe  —  the  acorn-cup  must  be  there,  and  in  his 
own  hand.  '  Give  it  me ;  then  I  will  make  more  of 
it  for  myself.'     That  is  the  child's  one  word,  always. 

"  It  is  also  the  one  word  of  the  Greek — '  Give  it 
me.'  Give  me  any  thing  definite  here  in  my  sight, 
then  I  will  make  more  of  it." 

The  example  is  typical  but  it  is  as  charming  as  it 
is  clear ;  and  these  subtle  psychological  points,  which 
the  aestheticist  raises  to  make  himself  better  under- 
stood, greatly  assist  the  reader  to  hear  him  to  the  end. 
Without  wandering  from  his  thesis,  Ruskin  has  re- 
lieved its  severity  by  introducing  us  to  the  simplest 
child's  play  and  the  most  undogmatic  talk.  It  no 
longer  seems  tiresome  to  delve  deep  into  the  under- 
lying significance  of  the  plastic  product  before  us — on 
the  contrary  it  amuses,  the  mind  relieving  the  eye] 
and  the  understanding  aiding  the  sensible  impression. 
One  wearies  soon  of  seeing  and  admiring  the  purely^ 
external  aspect  of  things  without  knowledge  of  their  J 


82  HIS    WORDS 

structure,  of  their  history,  of  their  functions,  or  of  their 
symbolism.  If  you  have  spent  hours  on  the  sea-shore 
and  watched  the  coming  and  going  of  ships,  yachts 
or  merchant  craft,  fishing  boats  or  coasters,  admiring 
ignorantly  these  common  things  and  involuntarily 
following  them  with  your  eyes,  you  will  not  reject  the 
teacher  who  whispers  in  your  ear  the  cause  of  all  this 
unreasoned  admiration  and  involuntary  sympathy. 

"  The  boat's  bow  is  naively  perfect :  complete  with- 
out an  effort.  The  man  who  made  it  knew  not  he 
was  making  anything  beautiful,  as  he  bent  its  planks 
into  those  mysterious,  ever-changing  curves.  It  grows 
under  his  hand  into  the  image  of  a  sea-shell ;  the  seal, 
as  it  were,  of  the  flowing  of  the  great  tides  and  streams 
of  ocean  stamped  on  its  delicate  rounding.  He  leaves 
it  when  all  is  done,  without  a  boast.  It  is  simple 
work,  but  it  will  keep  out  water.  And  every  plank 
thenceforward  is  a  Fate,  and  has  men's  lives  wreathed 
in  the  knots  of  it,  as  the  cloth-yard  shaft  had  their 
deaths  in  its  plumes. 

"  Then,  also,  it  is  wonderful  on  account  of  the 
greatness  of  the  thing  accomplished.  No  other  work 
of  human  hands  ever  gained  so  much.  Steam-engines 
and  telegraphs  indeed  help  us  to  fetch,  and  carry,  and 
talk ;  they  lift  weights  for  us,  and  bring  messages, 
with  less  trouble  than  would  have  been  needed 
otherwise ;  this  saving  of  trouble,  however,  does  not 
constitute  a  new  faculty,  it  only  enhances  the  powers 
we  already  possess.  But  in  that  bow  of  the  boat  is 
the  gift   of  another  world.     Without  it,  what   prison 


I.  ANALYSIS  83 

wall  would  be  so  strong  as  that  '  white  and  wailing 
fringe'  of  sea.  What  maimed  creatures  were  we  all, 
chained  to  our  rocks,  Andromeda-like,  or  wandering 
by  the  endless  shores,  wasting  our  incommunicable 
strength,  and  pining  in  hopeless  watch  of  unconquer- 
able waves  ?  The  nails  that  fasten  together  the  planks 
of  the  boat's  bow  are  the  rivets  of  the  fellowship  of 
the  world.  Their  iron  does  more  than  draw  lightning 
out  of  heaven,  it  leads  love  round  the  earth." 

Should  you  be  among  mountains  where  the  flora  is 
rich  and  varied,  and  at  each  step,  in  retired  nooks,  on 
high  uplands,  in  clefts  of  chalky  rocks,  in  damp  combes 
and  in  long  water-courses,  you  come  upon  blossoms 
for  which  the  dull  labels  of  horticultural  exhibitions 
have  no  name,  you  will  wish  not  only  to  see,  but  also 
to  know ;  and  if  to  the  pure  artist  there  is  indeed  a 
charm  in  walking  amongst  plants  and  flowers,  know- 
ing only  that  they  are  lovely,  just  as  one  may  pass 
through  a  reception-room  full  of  unknown  beauties, 
the  average  passer-by  nevertheless  likes  to  find  out 
something  about  them.  And  amongst  all  these  beau- 
teous anonyms  he  will  regret  that  there  is  no  botanist 
at  hand  to  give  him  the  name  of  their  outward  aspects, 
and  the  ideas  instinct  in  their  forms.  For  the  eye 
is  already  sated  with  pleasure  long-drawn-out,  and  the 
flower  will  drop  from  the  listless  hand  if  there  be 
nothing  for  the  intelligence  to  work  upon.  But  in 
the  nick  of  time  the  historian  appears  from  under  the 
shadow  of  a  rock  and  takes  up  his  parable. 

"  No  tribes  of  flowers  have  had  so  great,  so  varied, 


84  HIS    WORDS 

or  so  healthy  an  influence  on  man  as  this  great  group 
of  Drosidas,  depending  not  so  much  on  the  whiteness 
of  some  of  their  blossoms,  or  the  radiance  of  others,  as 
on  the  strength  and  delicacy  of  the  substance  of  their 
petals  ;  enabling  them  to  take  forms  of  faultless  elastic 
curvature,  either  in  cups,  as  the  crocus,  or  expand- 
ing bells,  as  the  true  lily,  or  heath-like  bells,  as  the 
hyacinth,  or  bright  and  perfect  stars,  like  the  star  of 
Bethlehem,  or,  when  they  are  affected  by  the  strange 
reflex  of  the  serpent  nature  which  forms  the  labiate 
group  of  all  flowers,  closing  into  forms  of  exquisitely 
fantastic  symmetry  in  the  gladiolus.  Put  by  their  side 
their  Nereid  sisters,  the  water-lilies,  and  you  have  in 
them  the  origin  of  the  loveliest  forms  of  ornamental 
design,  and  the  most  powerful  floral  myths  yet  re- 
cognised among  human  spirits,  born  by  the  streams 
of  Ganges,  Nile,  Arno,  and  Avon. 

"  For  consider  a  little  what  each  of  those  five  tribes 
has  been  to  the  spirit  of  man.  First,  in  their  noble- 
ness ;  the  Lilies  gave  the  lily  of  the  Annunciation ; 
the  Asphodels,  the  flower  of  the  Elysian  fields ;  the 
Irids,  the  fleur-de-lys  of  chivalry;  and  the  Amaryllids, 
Christ's  lily  of  the  field :  while  the  rush,  trodden 
always  under  foot,  became  the  emblem  of  humility. 
Then  take  each  of  the  tribes,  and  consider  the  extent 
of  their  lower  influence.  Perdita's  '  The  crown  im- 
perial, lilies  of  all  kinds,'  are  the  first  tribe ;  which, 
giving  the  type  of  perfect  purity  in  the  Madonna's 
lily,  have,  by  their  lovely  form,  influenced  the  entire 
decorative  design  of  Italian  sacred  art ;  while  ornament 


I.  ANALYSIS  85 

of  war  was  continually  enriched  by  the  curves  of 
the  triple  petals  of  the  Florentine  '  giglio,'  and  French 
fleur-de-lys ;  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  count  their 
influence  for  good  in  the  middle  ages,  partly  as  a 
symbol  of  womanly  character,  and  partly  of  the  utmost 
brightness  and  refinement  of  chivalry  in  the  city  which 
was  the  flower  of  cities." 

From  the  very  fields  you  step  into  a  museum ;  as  in 
many  a  small  Italian  township,  for  example,  on  the 
flowery  hill  of  Fiesole  or  in  the  deserted  island  of 
Torcello ;  and  from  the  growing  corn,  glowing  in 
the  sun,  you  pass  immediately  to  chill  and  ancient 
stones,  upon  which  even  the  mosses  will  no  longer 
grow.  These  also  at  first  appeal  only  to  the  eye. 
You  admire  the  modelling,  the  relief,  and  the  play  of 
shadow,  perhaps  the  graceful  movement  of  a  simple 
gesture,  or  the  noble  lines  of  multiplex  folds,  but 
unless  you  be  truly  a  craftsman  your  attention  will 
wander  if  your  intellectual  appetite  be  not  excited. 
Those  relics  resting  on  the  black  marble  pavements 
of  chill  halls  in  the  British  Museum,  or  standing  in 
the  niches  of  the  German  galleries  of  sculpture  are 
so  far  from  life  !  So  scarcely  do  they  touch  the  eco- 
nomy of  the  great  world  as  we  know  it,  its  passions 
or  its  sorrows  as  we  feel  them,  its  pleasures  as  we 
love  them.  .  .  .  But  indeed  they  do  touch  it,  says  the 
asstheticist,  as  dropping  his  flowers,  he  lays  a  finger 
on  the  dull,  cold  stone,  on  the  fragment  of  sculptured 
drapery,  and  calls  from  its  inert  body  the  idea  which 
stirred  it  at  birth. 


86  HIS    WORDS 

"  All  noble  draperies,  either  in  painting  or  sculpture 
(colour  and  texture  being  at  present  out  of  our  con- 
sideration), have,  so  far  as  they  are  anything  more 
than  necessities,  one  of  two  great  functions  :  they  are 
the  exponents  of  motion  and  of  gravitation.  They  are 
the  most  valuable  means  of  expressing  past  as  well 
as  present  motion  in  the  figure,  and  they  are  almost 
the  only  means  of  indicating  to  the  eye  the  force  of 
gravity  which  resists  such  motion.  The  Greeks  used 
drapery  in  sculpture  for  the  most  part  as  an  ugly 
necessity,  but  availed  themselves  of  it  gladly  in  all 
representation  of  action,  exaggerating  the  arrange- 
ments of  it  which  express  lightness  in  the  material, 
and  follow  gesture  in  the  person.  The  Christian 
Sculptors,  caring  little  for  the  body,  or  disliking  it, 
and  depending  exclusively  on  the  countenance,  re- 
ceived drapery  at  first  contentedly  as  a  veil,  but  soon 
perceived  a  capacity  of  expression  in  it  which  the 
Greek  had  not  seen  or  had  despised.  The  principal 
element  of  this  expression  was  the  entire  removal  01 
agitation  from  what  was  so  pre-eminently  capable  of 
being  agitated.  It  fell  from  their  human  forms  plumb 
down,  sweeping  the  ground  heavily,  and  concealing 
the  feet ;  while  the  Greek  drapery  was  often  blown 
away  from  the  thigh.  The  thick  and  coarse  stuffs  of 
the  monkish  dresses,  so  absolutely  opposed  to  the 
thin  and  gauzy  web  ot  antique  material,  suggested 
simplicity  of  division  as  well  as  weight  of  fall.  There 
was  no  crushing  nor  subdividing  them.  And  thus 
the  drapery  gradually  came  to  represent  the  spirit  of 


I.  ANALYSIS  87 

repose  as  it  before  had  of  motion,  repose  saintly  and 
severe.  The  wind  had  no  power  upon  the  garment, 
as  the  passion  none  upon  the  soul ;  and  the  motion  of 
the  figure  only  bent  into  a  softer  line  the  stillness 
of  the  falling  veil,  followed  by  it  like  a  slow  cloud 
by  drooping  rain :  only  in  links  of  lighter  undulation 
it  followed  the  dances  of  the  angels. 

"Thus  treated,  drapery  is  indeed  noble;  but  it  is 
an  exponent  of  other  and  higher  things.  As  that 
of  gravitation,  it  has  especial  majesty,  being  literally 
the  only  means  we  have  of  fully  representing  this 
mysterious  natural  force  of  earth  (for  falling  water 
is  less  passive  and  less  defined  in  its  lines).  So, 
again,  in  sails  it  is  beautiful  because  it  receives  the 
forms  of  solid  curved  surface,  and  expresses  the  force 
of  another  invisible  element." 

Such  words  extend  our  field  of  thought  and  open 

our  horizon.  To  further  the  comprehension  of  a  work 
of  art,  to  detain  us  an  instant  longer  before  a  detail 
in  sculpture,  Rusk  in  lays  the  whole  physical  world 
under  contribution,  as  elsewhere  the  world  of  morals. 
Here  in  the  fold  and  fall  of  drapery  he  sees  the 
mysterious  law  which  governs  the  stars,  and  there 
in  the  curve  of  a  petal  the  flower  which  foreshadows 
a  God.  All  scientific  or  moral  ideas,  accumulated 
during  centuries,  group  themselves  naturally  round 
the  object  which  he  examines  with  us.  For  him  more 
than  for  any  one  else  "The  sound  of  the  Ocean  is 
prison'd  in  a  shell,"  and  every  grain  of  dust  is  a  magic 
Sesame  for  the  palace  of  Knowledge.     He  seems  to 


88  HIS    WORDS 

possess  some  circular  receptive  apparatus  like  that 
used  to  take  panoramic  photographs.  Wherever  he 
places  himself  he  discerns  as  a  whole  the  harmony  of 
natural  phenomena  and  human  sympathies :  and  into 
whatever  chalice  he  gazes  it  reflects  a  universe  of 
things  on  high. 

From  these  simple  comparisons  is  born  a  poetry, 
healthy,  scientific,  instructive.  Ruskin  neither  invents 
nor  creates  nor  discovers  nor  imagines;  he  does  but 
link  ideas  together,  pass  rapidly  from  one  point  of 
>view  to  others  hitherto  unperceived,  and  synthetises 
unsuspected  sympathies.  /  Taking  up  a  central  position 
where  the  conclusions  of  science,  of  art,  of  religion 
and  philosophy  converge,  he  puts  these  ideas  into 
sudden  communication  as  an  electric  circuit  is  closed 
by  a  touch — and  lo !  a  flash  !  .  .  .  What  new  force 
is  this  ?  Here  were  two  ideas  dormant  without 
energy,  instinct  with  no  poetry./  There  is  nothing 
new :  simply  these  ideas,  charged  as  they  were  with 
infinity,  kiss,  and  lo !  life,  where  once  was  but  inert 
matter  of  thought.  Carlyle  wrote  of  Ruskin  on  the 
19th  of  April  1 86 1  : — 

•  "  Friday  last  I  was  persuaded — in  fact  had  inwardly 
compelled  myself  as  it  were — to  a  lecture  of  Ruskin's 
at  the  Institution,  Albemarle  Street.  Lecture  on  Tree 
Leaves  as  physiological,  pictorial,  moral,  symbolical 
objects.  A  crammed  house,  but  tolerable  even  to  me 
in  the  gallery.  The  lecture  was  thought  to  '  break 
down,'  and  indeed  it  quite  did  '  as  a  lecture ' ;  but  only 
did  from  embarras  de  richesses — a  rare  case.     Ruskin 


I.    ANALYSIS  89 

did  blow  asunder  as  by  gunpowder  explosions  his  leaf 
notions,  which  were  manifold,  curious,  genial ;  and  in 
fact  I  do  not  recollect  to  have  heard  in  that  place  any 
neatest  thing  I  liked  so  well  as  this  chaotic  one." 

The  truth  is  that  with  such  a  method  as  this  chaos 
cannot  be  avoided,  and  the  attention  is  exhausted  at 
last  by  the  ceaseless  display  of  incongruous  treasure. 
Ruskin,  with  his  mania  for  appropriating  all  things, 
comes  in  the  end  to  resemble  the  child  in  St.  Augus- 
tine's story,  who  would  have  the  sea  to  stay  in  a 
hole  he  was  digging  on  the  sea-shore.  We  weary 
of  passing  from  one  idea  to  another.  Bidden  evoke 
all  science  and  all  dogma,  our  intelligence  satisfied 
and  our  memory  replete,  we  resent  a  longer  tension. 
We  are  overfeasted  with  ideas. 


CHAPTER    II 

IMAGERY 

AND  here  thought  blossoms  into  imagery.  .  .  .  Just  as 
Ruskin  makes  the  reader  understand  so  he  makes  him 
see,  and  the  moment  that,  weary  and  wandering,  we 
would  steal  away  from  dialectic,  we  are  captive  again 
through  the  imagination.  In  what  at  first  sight  seems 
to  appeal  to  sense  only,  the  aestheticist  shows  the 
intellectual  element,  and  that  usually  held  to  be  purely 
intellectual  is  now  to  be  made  perceptible  by  sense. 
He  has  transformed  the  visible  imagery  of  the  painters 
into  ideas ;  he  is  going  to  transform  the  ideas  of 
philosophers  into  visible  imagery.  He  will  demon- 
strate by  way  of  narration,  and  paint  by  way  of  proof. 
If  he  pleads  in  favour  of  simple  composition  in  a 
historical  landscape,  he  is  not  content  with  telling 
you  that  "the  impression  is  destroyed  by  a  multitude 
of  contradictory  facts,  and  the  accumulation,  which  is 
not  harmonious,  is  discordant,"  and  that  the  painter 
"  who  endeavours  to  unite  simplicity  with  magnificence, 
to  guide  from  solitude  to  festivity,  and  to  contrast 
melancholy  with  mirth,  must  end  by  the  production 
of  confused  inanity,"  and  that  because  "there  is  a 
peculiar  spirit  possessed  by  every  kind  of  scene ;  and 


II.  IMAGERY  91 

although  a  point  of  contrast  may  sometimes  enhance 
and  exhibit  this  particular  feeling  more  intensely,  it 
must  be  only  a  point,  not  an  equalised  opposition. 
Every  introduction  of  new  and  different  feeling  weakens 
the  force  of  what  has  already  been  impressed,  and  the 
mingling  of  all  emotions  must  conclude  in  apathy,  as 
the  mingling  of  all  colours  in  white," — which  would  be 
an  interesting  but  abstract  view  of  the  question.  He 
tests  his  artistic  thesis  by  a  concrete  example,  by  a 
landscape  which  he  has  seen ;  and  his  argument  is 
shot  through  with  that  splendid  fleeting  vision  well 
known  to  those  who  have  followed  the  Appian  Way 
at  nightfall. 

"  Perhaps  there  is  no  more  impressive  scene  on 
earth  than  the  solitary  extent  of  the  Campagna  of 
Rome  under  evening  light.  Let  the  reader  imagine 
himself  for  a  moment  withdrawn  from  the  sounds  and 
motion  of  the  living  world,  and  sent  forth  alone  into 
this  wild  and  wasted  plain.  The  earth  yields  and 
crumbles  beneath  his  foot,  tread  he  never  so  lightly, 
for  its  substance  is  white,  hollow,  and  carious,  like 
the  dusty  wreck  of  the  bones  of  men.  The  long 
knotted  grass  waves  and  tosses  feebly  in  the  evening- 
wind,  and  the  shadows  of  its  motion  shake  feverishly 
along  the  banks  of  ruin  that  lift  themselves  to  the 
sunlight.  Hillocks  of  mouldering  earth  heave  around 
him  as  if  the  dead  beneath  were  struggling  in  their 
sleep ;  scattered  blocks  of  black  stone,  four-square, 
remnants  of  mighty  edifices,  not  one  left  upon  another, 
lie   upon  them  to   keep   them  down.     A   dull   purple, 


92  HIS    WORDS 

poisonous  haze  stretches  level  along  the  desert,  veiling 
its  spectral  wrecks  of  massy  ruins,  on  whose  rents 
the  red  light  rests  like  dying  fire  on  defiled  altars. 
The  blue  ridge  of  the  Alban  mount  lifts  itself  against 
a  solemn  space  of  green,  clear,  quiet,  sky.  Watch- 
towers  of  dark  clouds  stand  steadfastly  along  the 
promontories  of  the  Apennines.  From  the  plain  to 
the  mountains,  the  shattered  aqueducts,  pier  beyond 
pier,  melt  into  the  darkness,  like  shadowy  and  count- 
less troops  of  funeral  mourners,  passing  from  a 
nation's  grave."  "  Let  us,  with  Claude,  make  a  few 
'  ideal '  alterations  in  the  landscape,"  says  Ruskin,  and 
the  dissertation  continues.  Thenceforth  the  author's 
thought  and  the  reader's  attention  have  a  picture 
before  them  which  soothes  and  assists  concentration. 
Just  as  the  mysterious  laws  of  nature  and  the  moral 
necessities  of  life  were  not  lost  sight  of  in  gazing  upon 
the  falling  folds  of  a  Greek  tunic  or  the  delicate  work- 
manship of  a  Gothic  mullion,  so  the  picturesque  aspect 
of  things  is  not  neglected  when  we  follow  pure 
aesthetics,  history,  and  natural  or  social  science.  We 
are  not  forced  to  quit  the  kingdom  of  form  and  colour 
because  we  would  enter  that  of  ideas.  Art  need  not 
be  deserted  because  one  enters  on  the  study  of  man. 
For  it  is  not  alone  the  life  of  a  picture  that  Ruskin 
has  delineated,  it  is  also  a  picture  of  life. 

Here  is  such  a  picture  of  Venetian  life  at  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  or  rather  a  view  of  Venice  as 
Turner  or  Ziem  would  have  imagined  it.  It  comes  up 
suddenly  in  the  course  of  a  comparison  between  two 


II.    IMAGERY  93 

colourists,  Giorgione  and  Turner.  Ruskin  wishes  to 
show  what  influence  the  first  impressions  of  childhood, 
the  rich  surroundings  in  which  he  lived,  would  have 
upon  the  eye  and  soul  of  a  painter,  and  to  emphasise 
his  point  he  recalls  this  scene  to  those  who  might  have 
forgotten  it : — 

11 A  city  of  marble,  did  I  say  ?  nay,  rather  a  golden 
city,  paved  with  emerald.  For  truly,  every  pinnacle 
and  turret  glanced  or  glowed,  overlaid  with  gold,  or 
bossed  with  jasper.  Beneath,  the  unsullied  sea  drew 
in  deep  breathing,  to  and  fro,  its  eddies  of  green  wave. 
Deep-hearted,  majestic,  terrible  as  the  sea, — the  men 
of  Venice  moved  in  sway  of  power  and  war ;  pure 
as  her  pillars  of  alabaster,  stood  her  mothers  and 
maidehs ;  from  foot  to  brow,  all  noble,  walked  her 
knights  ;  the  low  bronzed  gleaming  of  sea-rusted  ar- 
mour shot  angrily  under  their  blood-red  mantle-folds. 
Fearless,  faithful,  patient,  impenetrable,  implacable, 
— every  word  a  fate — sate  her  senate.  In  hope  and 
honour,  lulled  by  flowing  of  wave  around  their  isles 
of  sacred  sand,  each  with  his  name  written  and  the 
cross  graved  at  his  side,  lay  her  dead.  A  wonderful 
piece  of  world.  Rather,  itself  a  world.  It  lay  along 
the  face  of  the  waters,  no  larger,  as  its  captains  saw 
it  from  their  masts  at  evening,  than  a  bar  of  sunset 
that  could  not  pass  away ;  but  for  its  power,  it  must 
have  seemed  to  them  as  if  they  were  sailing  in  the  ex- 
panse of  heaven,  and  this  a  great  planet,  whose  orient 
edge  widened  through  ether.  A  world  from  which 
all   ignoble   care   and   petty   thoughts  were   banished, 


94  HIS    WORDS 

with  all  the  common  and  poor  elements  of  life.  No 
foulness,  nor  tumult,  in  those  tremulous  streets,  that 
filled  or  fell,  beneath  the  moon ;  but  rippled  music  of 
majestic  change,  or  thrilling  silence.  No  weak  walls 
could  rise  above  them ;  no  low-roofed  cottage,  nor 
straw-built  shed.  Only  the  strength  as  of  rock,  and 
the  finished  setting  of  stones  most  precious.  And 
around  them,  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  still  the  soft 
moving  of  stainless  waters,  proudly  pure ;  as  not  the 
flower,  so  neither  the  thorn  nor  the  thistle,  could  grow 
in  the  glancing  fields.  Ethereal  strength  of  Alps, 
dreamlike,  vanishing  in  high  procession  beyond  the 
Torcellan  shore;  blue  islands  of  Paduan  hills,  poised 
in  the  golden  west.  Above,  free  winds  and  fiery 
clouds  raging  at  their  will : — brightness  out  of  the 
north,  and  balm  from  the  south,  and  the  stars  of  the 
evening  and  morning  clear  in  the  limitless  light  of 
arched  heaven  and  circling  sea. 

"  Such  was  Giorgione's  school — such  Titian's  home." 
All  things  naturally  strike  Ruskin  as  in  relief,  in 
perspective,  distinguished  as  light  or  shade.  The 
most  abstract  problems  of  social  economy  always 
present  themselves  to  him  in  plastic  and  picturesque 
guise.  To  his  eyes  there  is  no  machinery  of  life 
which  cannot  be  composed  as  a  picture,  nor  any  in- 
ternational problem  which  is  not  to  be  resolved  into 
a  living  drama  played  by  actors  whom  he  himself 
creates,  tricks  out  forthwith  and  produces  in  the 
theatre  of  his  imagination.  If  he  attacks  the  useless 
and  costly  system  of  armed  peace  which  obtains  with 


II.   IMAGERY  95 

the    Great    Powers    of  Europe,    it    is    in    this    highly 
coloured  trope : — 

"  Friends,  I  know  not  whether  this  thing  be  the 
more  ludicrous  or  the  more  melancholy.  It  is 
quite  unspeakably  both.  Suppose,  instead  of  being 
now  sent  for  by  you,  I  had  been  sent  for  by  some 
private  gentleman,  living  in  a  suburban  house,  with 
his  garden  separated  only  by  a  fruit  wall  from  his 
next  door  neighbour's ;  and  he  had  called  me  to  con- 
sult with  him  on  the  furnishing  of  his  drawing-room. 
I  begin  looking  about  me,  and  find  the  walls  rather 
bare  ;  I  think  such  and  such  a  paper  might  be 
desirable — perhaps  a  little  fresco  here  and  there  on 
the  ceiling — a  damask  curtain  or  so  at  the  windows. 
'Ah,'  says  my  employer,  'damask  curtains,  indeed! 
That's  all  very  fine,  but  you  know  I  can't  afford  that 
kind  of  thing  just  now  ! '  '  Yet  the  world  credits  you 
with  a  splendid  income!'  'Ah,  yes,'  says  my  friend, 
'  but  do  you  know,  at  present  I  am  obliged  to  spend 
it  nearly  all  in  steel  -  traps  ?  '  '  Steel  -  traps  !  for 
whom  ? '  '  Why,  for  that  fellow  on  the  other  side  the 
wall,  you  know:  we're  very  good  friends,  capital 
friends ;  but  we  are  obliged  to  keep  our  traps  set 
on  both  sides  of  the  wall ;  we  could  not  possibly 
keep  on  friendly  terms  without  them,  and  our  spring 
guns.  The  worst  of  it  is,  we  are  both  clever  fellows 
enough ;  and  there's  never  a  day  passes  that  we  don't 
find  out  a  new  trap,  or  a  new  gun-barrel,  or  some- 
thing ;  we  spend  about  fifteen  millions  a  year  each  in 
our  traps,  take  it  altogether;  and  I  don't  see  how  we're 
to   do  with   less.'      A   highly  comic   state  of  life   for 


96  HIS    WORDS 

two  private  gentlemen  !  but  for  two  nations,  it  seems 
to  me,  not  wholly  comic.  Bedlam  would  be  comic, 
perhaps,  if  there  were  only  one  madman  in  it ;  and 
your  Christmas  pantomime  is  comic,  when  there  is 
only  one  clown  in  it;  but  when  the  whole  world 
turns  clown,  and  paints  itself  red  with  its  own  heart's 
blood  instead  of  vermilion,  it  is  something  else  than 
comic,  I  think." 

These  last  words  are  not  proper  to  a  writer  de- 
veloping an  idea  ;  they  would  be  those  of  a  lunatic 
were  their  speaker  not  a  painter.  Occupied  always 
with  visual  sensations,  Ruskin  passes  without  transi- 
tion from  the  red  of  vermilion  to  the  red  colour  of 
blood — because  in  colour  there  is  no  transition.  His 
images,  as  successively  he  calls  them  up,  warp  and 
destroy  his  argument.  He  might  say,  parodying  a 
well-known  aphorism,  "  Cogito  ergo  sum,  video  ergo 
sum  !  " — We  must  see  in  order  to  think.  To  praise 
the  inward  life — what  does  that  amount  to  ?  or  the 
teaching  that  man  does  not  profit  sufficiently  by  the 
experience  of  ancient  leaders  of  men  and  by  the 
thought  of  great  philosophers  ?  To  most  of  us  it 
is  nothing  but  an  idea,  to  Ruskin  it  is  a  picture, 
a  landscape  animated  with  figures:  "It  is  a  drawing 
of  Kirkby  Lonsdale  churchyard,  and  of  its  brook, 
and  valley,  and  hills,  and  folded  morning  sky  be- 
yond. And  unmindful  alike  of  these,  and  of  the 
dead  who  have  left  these  for  other  valleys  and  for 
other  skies,  a  group  of  schoolboys  have  piled  their 
little  books  upon  a  grave,  to  strike  them  off  with 
stones.     So,  also,  we  play  with  the  words  of  the  dead 


II.    IMAGERY  97 

that  would  teach  us,  and  strike  them  far  from  us  with 
our  bitter,  reckless  will ;  little  thinking  that  those 
leaves  which  the  wind  scatters  had  been  piled,  not 
only  upon  a  gravestone,  but  upon  the  seal  of  an  en- 
chanted vault — nay,  the  gate  of  a  great  city  of  sleeping 
Kings,  who  would  awake  for  us,  and  walk  with  us, 
if  we  knew  but  how  to  call  them  by  their  names." 

And  what  is  the  external  life — ambition  and  osten- 
tation, sounding  praise  and  vanity  of  vanities,  which 
we  seek  even  at  the  price  of  our  peace  ?  Again  it  is 
a  picture,  a  canvas  touched  by  the  hand  of  a  master, 
where  Ribera's  awful  shadows  alternate  with  the  irony 
of  a  Holbein  and  the  terror  of  a  Schongauer : — 

"My  friends,  do  you  remember  that  old  Scythian 
custom,  when  the  head  of  a  house  died  ?  How  he 
was  dressed  in  his  finest  dress,  and  set  in  his  chariot, 
and  carried  about  to  his  friends'  houses ;  and  each  of 
them  placed  him  at  his  table's  head,  and  all  feasted 
in  his  presence  ?  Suppose  it  were  offered  to  you  in 
plain  words,  as  it  is  offered  to  you  in  dire  facts,  that 
you  should  gain  this  Scythian  honour,  gradually, 
while  you  yet  thought  yourself  alive.  Suppose  the 
offer  were  this:  You  shall  die  slowly;  your  blood 
shall  daily  grow  cold,  your  flesh  petrify,  your  heart 
beat  at  last  only  as  a  rusted  group  of  iron  valves. 
Your  life  shall  fade  from  you,  and  sink  through  the 
earth  into  the  ice  of  Caina ;  but,  day  by  day,  your 
body  shall  be  dressed  more  gaily,  and  set  in  higher 
chariots,  and  have  more  orders  on  its  breast — crowns 
on   its   head,  if  you   will.     Men   shall   bow   before  it, 

G 


98  HIS    WORDS 

stare  and  shout  round  it,  crowd  after  it  up  and  down 
the  streets;  build  palaces  for  it,  feast  with  it  at  their 
tables'  heads  all  the  night  long ;  your  soul  shall  stay 
enough  within  it  to  know  what  they  do,  and  feel  the 
weight  of  the  golden  dress  on  its  shoulders,  and  the 
furrow  of  the  crown-edge  on  the  skull ; — no  more. 
Would  you  take  the  offer,  verbally  made  by  the  death- 
angel  ?  Would  the  meanest  among  us  take  it,  think 
you  ?  Yet  practically  and  verily  we  grasp  at  it,  every 
one  of  us,  in  a  measure ;  many  of  us  grasp  at  it  in  its 
fulness  of  horror.  Every  man  accepts  it,  who  desires 
to  advance  in  life  without  knowing  what  life  is ;  who 
means  only  that  he  is  to  get  more  horses,  and  more 
footmen,  and  more  fortune,  and  more  public  honour, 
and — not  more  personal  soul.  He  only  is  advancing 
in  life,  whose  heart  is  getting  softer,  whose  blood 
warmer,  whose  brain  quicker,  whose  spirit  is  entering 
into  Living1  peace." 

Let  us  turn  several  pages :  the  sombre  vision  has 
vanished.  From  the  psychology  of  ambition  we  have 
passed  to  the  psychology  of  the  woman  dear  to 
Ruskin's  heart,  the  intellectual  and  modest  woman, 
to  whom  all  knowledge  should  be  given,  not  to 
"turn  her  into  a  dictionary,"  not  "as  if  it  were,  or 
could  be,  for  her  an  object  to  know;  but  only  to  feel 
and  to  judge." 

And  here  again  this  penetrating  analysis  of  feminine 
education  is  crowned  by  a  portrait  as  full  of  play  of 
light  and  shade  as  a  canvas  of  Diaz : — 

1   "  t6  5e  (ppbf7}na  rod  Trpevfiaros  fw7)  /ecu  elprjVTj." 


II.    IMAGERY  99 

"  Wherever  a  true  wife  comes,  this  home  is  always 
round  her.  The  stars  only  may  be  over  her  head  ; 
the  glowworm  in  the  night-cold  grass  may  be  the 
only  fire  at  her  foot ;  but  home  is  yet  wherever  she 
is;  and  for  a  noble  woman  it  stretches  far  round 
her,  better  than  ceiled  with  cedar,  or  painted  with 
vermilion,  shedding  its  quiet  light  far,  for  those  who 
else  were  homeless." 

"  This,  then,  I  believe  to  be, — will  you  not  admit  it  to 
be, — the  woman's  true  place  and  power  ?  But  do  not 
you  see  that,  to  fulfil  this,  she  must — as  far  as  one 
can  use  such  terms  of  a  human  creature — be  incapable 
of  error  ?  So  far  as  she  rules,  all  must  be  right,  or 
nothing  is.  She  must  be  enduringly,  incorruptibly 
good ;  instinctively,  infallibly  wise — wise,  not  for  self- 
development,  but  for  self-renunciation  :  wise,  not  that 
she  may  set  herself  above  her  husband,  but  that  she 
may  never  fail  from  his  side  :  wise,  not  with  the 
narrowness  of  insolent  and  loveless  pride,  but  with  the 
passionate  gentleness  of  an  infinitely  variable,  because 
infinitely  applicable,  modesty  of  service — the  true 
changefulness  of  woman.  In  that  great  sense — 'La 
donna  e  mobile,'  not  '  Qual  pium'  al  vento ' ;  no,  nor 
yet  '  Variable  as  the  shade,  by  the  light  quivering 
aspen  made';  but  variable  as  the  light,  manifold  in 
fair  and  serene  division,  that  it  may  take  the  colour  of 
all  that  it  falls  upon,  and  exalt  it." 

It  is  always  with  a  painter's  eye  that  the  writer 
scrutinises  dogmas  and  examines  archives.  For 
Ruskin   history  is  as   it  were   a   perspective  view   of 


V 


ioo  HIS    WORDS 

some  great  piazza  by  Canaletto,  wherein  are  set  figures 
by  Guardi  or  Tiepolo,  coming  and  going  either  splen- 
didly or  miserably  attired,  carrying  banners  which  he 
joyfully  describes,  fashioning  coat  armour  which  he 
analyses  with  care,  striking  medals  which  with  a 
prompt  and  subtle  gesture  he  flashes  before  your  eyes 
like  the  Piero  de  Medici's  of  the  Uffizi.  In  a  trefoil 
engraved  under  the  feet  of  St.  John,  on  a  florin  coined 
in  the  Val  di  Serchio,  is  expressed  all  the  victory  of 
the  Florentines  over  the  Pisans  ;  and  Ruskin  follows 
the  progress  of  the  popular  party  at  Florence  by  the 
development  of  the  use  of  a  certain  colour  in  the 
arms  of  the  town,  as  he  might  follow  the  march  of 
the  hours  by  some  rising  shadow  on  a  wall. 

When  he  speaks  of  lavas  and  siliceous  rocks,  of 
pudding-stones  and  limestones,  of  deposits  in  Cumber- 
land, and  the  movement  of  glaciers  in  Switzerland,  he 
is  always  an  artist  treating  science  like  a  landscape — 
a  landscape,  whose  lines  are  modified  insensibly  by  the 
pressure  of  elemental  forces,  here  sinking  there  rising 
anew,  the  laws  of  change  being  expressed  in  forms  of 
cloud  and  flower.  All  religions  appear  to  Ruskin  like 
the  frescoes  of  the  Primitive  Master  wherein  cardinal 
virtues  are  expressed  by  grace  of  gesture,  and  dogmas 
are  appraised  by  purity  of  colour.  Paint-brush  in 
hand  he  traverses  the  whole  universe  of  ideas  and 
things.  The  author  thinks  in  images — which  certain 
great  painters  of  his  country  assuredly  do  not — and 
for  that  much  more  than  for  his  drawings  and  water- 
colours  he  is  really  a  pictor  and  one  of  the  most  truly 


II.  IMAGERY  101 

pictorial  of  all  that  the  United  Kingdom  has  produced. 
This  is  so  true  that  he  cannot  find  words  strongly 
coloured  enough  to  translate  his  images.  He  is  not 
satisfied  with  the  general  ideas  which,  formless  and 
colourless  from  long  use,  his  words  present  to  the 
mind.  Like  a  painter  squeezing  his  tubes  to  force  out 
more  cobalt  or  vermilion,  so  Ruskin  presses  his  words 
till  he  makes  the  original  image  which  gave  them  birth 
emerge,  and  sparkle  in  their  appeal  to  the  eye. 

"The  'Paese  che  Adice  e  Po  riga'  is  of  course 
Lombardy;  and  might  have  been  enough  distinguished 
by  the  name  of  its  principal  river.  But  Dante  has  an 
especial  reason  for  naming  the  Adige.  It  is  always  by 
the  valley  of  the  Adige  that  the  power  of  the  German 
Caesars  descends  on  Italy;  and  that  battlemented 
bridge  which  doubtless  many  of  you  remember,  thrown 
over  the  Adige  at  Verona,  was  so  built  that  the  Ger- 
man riders  might  have  secure  and  constant  access  to 
the  city.  In  which  city  they  had  their  first  strong- 
hold in  Italy,  aided  therein  by  the  great  family  of  the 
Montecchi,  Montacutes,  Mont-aigu-s,  or  Montagues ; 
lords,  so  called,  of  the  mountain  peaks ;  in  feud  with 
the  family  of  the  Cappelletti,— hatted,  or  more  properly, 
scarlet-hatted,  persons :  And  this  accident  of  nomen- 
clature, assisted  by  your  present  familiar  knowledge  of 
the  real  contests  of  the  sharp  mountains  with  the  flat 
caps,  or  petasoi,  of  cloud  (locally  giving  Mont  Pilate 
its  title,  'Pileatus,')  may  in  many  points  curiously 
illustrate  for  you  that  contest  of  Frederick  the  Second 
with  Innocent  the  Fourth,  which  in  the  good  of  it  and 


102  HIS    WORDS 

the  evil  alike,  represents  to  all  time  the  war  of  the  solid, 
rational,  and  earthly  authority  of  the  King  and  state, 
with  the  more  or  less  spectral,  hooded,  imaginative, 
and  nubiform  authority  of  the  Pope,  and  Church." 

To  excuse  this  mania  for  etymology,  which  at  every 
moment  draws  him  from  his  subject,  in  vain  does  he 
say  that  "  philological  and  philosophical  subtlety  are 
one,"  for  the  end  which  he  pursues  is  much  less  philo- 
sophical precision  than  brilliancy  of  tone. 

But  these  are  only  images  for  the  eye  of  the  mind ; 
Ruskin  professes  also  to  attract  the  physical  eye  of  his 
reader.  To  that  end  he  fills  his  volumes  with  graphic 
illustrations.  Wherever  he  can,  he  gives  the  plastic 
instead  of  the  literary  example.  No  written  page 
would  avail  to  show  the  different  manner  in  which 
Ghirlandajo  and  Claude  Lorraine  interpret  the  same 
landscape  so  well  as  the  juxtaposition  of  two  engrav- 
ings which  Ruskin  displays  in  the  fourth  volume  of 
Modern  Painters.  No  poetry,  however  suggestive, 
could  measure  for  us  the  remoteness  of  the  bull  of 
Indian  art,  conventional  and  cold,  from  the  living 
bull  of  a  Greek  coin  so  well  as  the  two  engravings 
set  side  by  side  on  p.  226  of  Aratra  Pentelici.  And 
although  it  is  more  in  fun  than  by  way  of  demon- 
stration that  Ruskin  gives  together  on  the  same  page 
exquisite  reproductions  of  god-man  as  he  was  formerly 
conceived — the  Apollo  of  Syracuse — and  the  portrait 
of  the  London  citizen, — the  self-made  man  wearing 
a  chimneypot  hat,  with  spectacles  astride  on  his 
nose,   and  whiskers   brushed   up,  we  have  at  once  a 


II.   IMAGERY  103 

more  vivid  presentment  than  we  should  gain  from  the 
longest  report  ever  presented  to  a  society  by  any 
anthropologist. 

Ruskin's  imagery  pervades  even  the  typing  of  his 
books,  which  is  inspired  by  the  same  desire  to  fasci- 
nate the  eye.  The  paragraphs  are  cleverly  divided, 
the  spacing  is  laboriously  studied,  italics  and  capita}' 
letters  appear  in  great  numbers,  and  words  in  old 
French  or  in  Greek  insinuate  themselves  gracefully 
into  the  monotony  of  the  English  paragraphs.  More 
than  that,  where  the  author  wishes  to  show  that  the 
nineteenth  century  has  failed  in  its  social  duty,  he  is 
not  content  with  reproducing  as  it  stands  a  passage 
from  the  Daily  Telegraph  relating  a  drama  of  cruelty 
and  misery  which  happened  in  the  Spitalfields  district. 
The  words  themselves  might  have  seemed  sufficiently 
pictorial,  but  the  painter's  instinct,  which  is  in  Ruskin, 
needs  more  colour,  and  so  he  prints  them  in  red 
letters,  alleging  for  reason  that  "  the  facts  themselves 
are  written  in  that  colour,  in  a  book  which  we  shall 
all  of  us,  literate  or  illiterate,  have  to  read  our  page  of, 
some  day."  Meanwhile,  ere  we  come  to  that  awful  last 
Prelection,  we  may  peruse  in  the  volume  of  Sesanm 
three  blinding,  bleeding  pages  which  no  one  who  has 
once  read  can  ever  forget — especially  if  he  read  them 
in  the  evening,  by  lamplight,  for  the  utter  weariness 
of  his  flesh  ! 

Here  Ruskin's  passion  for  minuteness  rages  in  all 
its  intensity.  Not  but  that  it  has  a  charm,  when  it 
succeeds  to  generalities.     Etymology  is  a  relief  after 


i 


104  HIS    WORDS 

vague  eloquence,  and  it  is  refreshing  to  contemplate 
the  colour  of  a  single  word  after  gazing  on  the  tones 
washed  so  broadly  over  the  frescoes  of  history.  The 
images  are  in  constantly  varying  dimension.  From 
a  comprehensive  view  of  the  Roman  Campagna  we 
pass  to  close  study  of  details,  of  an  individual,  of  an 
hour,  of  a  blade  of  grass,  of  a  syllable.  If  our  eyes 
be  tired  with  deciphering  such  puzzles  as  the  letters  of 
a  missal,  Ruskin  directs  them  to  distant  plains  spread 
out  in  the  sunshine ;  the  V E space  of  Chintreuil  suc- 
ceeds to  the  Buisson  of  Ruysdael.  If  on  the  other 
hand  our  sight  be  fatigued  with  wandering  over 
expanses  where  it  perceives  nothing  to  analyse  nor 
anything  distinct  to  grasp,  he  recalls  it  to  the  beetle 
which  crawls  at  our  feet.  Slingelandt  after  Turner. 
A  panorama  is  a  relief  from  the  microscope,  and  the 
microscope  from  the  panorama.  At  different  stages  of 
our  journey  it  seems  as  if  we  took  up  sometimes 
an  entomologist,  sometimes  a  cosmographist.  But 
whether  entomologist,  cosmographist,  or  poet,  our 
companion  always  expresses  himself  as  a  painter;  and 
as  painter  he  does  not  invent  or  compose  his  pictures 
at  his  good  pleasure  out  of  scattered  elements.  When 
he  describes  a  landscape  it  is  not  any  landscape,  but 
one  which  he  has  seen  at  a  certain  spot,  in  a  certain 
season,  at  a  certain  time,  in  a  certain  light.  Like 
Claude  Monet  painting  his  Meules,  and  like  Achand 
working  at  a  landscape,  Ruskin  would  not  add  a  blade 
of  grass  he  had  not  seen,  or  before  which  he  had  not 
stood  in  rapture.     He  specifies :    it  is  one    hour  he 


II.    IMAGERY  105 

passed  "  near  time  of  sunset,  among  the  broken 
masses  of  pine  forest  which  skirt  the  course  of  the 
Ain,  above  the  village  of  Champagnole,  in  the  Jura." 

"  It  was  spring  time,  too ;  and  all  were  coming 
forth  in  clusters  crowded  for  very  love ;  there  was 
room  enough  for  all,  but  they  crushed  their  leaves 
into  all  manner  of  strange  shapes  only  to  be  nearer 
each  other.  There  was  the  wood  anemone,  star  after 
star,  closing  ever}'  now  and  then  into  nebulae;  and 
there  was  the  oxalis,  troop  by  troop,  like  virginal 
processions  of  the  Mois  de  Marie,  the  dark  vertical 
clefts  in  the  limestone  choked  up  with  them  as  with 
heavy  snow,  and  touched  with  ivy  on  the  edges — ivy 
as  light  and  lovely  as  the  vine ;  and,  ever  and  anon, 
a  blue  gush  of  violets,  and  cowslip  bells  in  sunny 
places ;  and  in  the  more  open  ground,  the  vetch,  and 
comfrey,  and  mezereon,  and  the  small  sapphire  buds 
of  the  Polygala  Alpina,  and  the  wild  strawberry,  just 
a  blossom  or  two,  all  showered  amidst  the  golden  soft- 
ness of  deep,  warm,  amber-coloured  moss.  I  came  out 
presently  on  the  edge  of  the  ravine  :  the  solemn  murmur 
of  its  waters  rose  suddenly  from  beneath,  mixed  with 
the  singing  of  the  thrushes  among  the  pine  boughs  ; 
and,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  valley,  walled  all  along 
as  it  was  by  grey  cliffs  of  limestone,  there  was  a  hawk 
sailing  slowly  off  their  brow,  touching  them  nearly 
with  his  wings,  and  with  the  shadows  of  the  pines 
flickering  upon  his  plumage  from  above ;  but  with  the 
fall  of  a  hundred  fathoms  under  his  breast,  and  the 
curling  pools  of  the  green  river  gliding  and  glittering 


106  HIS    WORDS 

dizzily  beneath  him,  their  foam  globes  moving  with 
him  as  he  flew." 

This  has  been  actually  seen — not  laboriously  trans- 
lated into  terms  of  imagery,  but  felt  in  a  pictorial  form. 
Here  is  no  man  of  letters  turning  painter,  but  a 
painter  turning  writer.  We  have  not  a  caligraphist 
labouring  to  introduce  an  image  here  and  there  into 
a  Book  of  Hours  he  has  copied :  but  an  illumina- 
tor who,  after  long  rubbing  of  his  paint-brushes  on 
the  vellum,  snatches  up  a  pen  wherewith  to  explain 
himself;  and  indeed  it  seems  that  some  of  the  gold 
or  ultramarine  which  he  has  handled  so  long  still 
remains  on  the  tips  of  his  fingers.  Pigments  withal 
are  needed  in  so  hard  a  task,  for  he  will  presently 
undertake  to  paint  the  very  air.  But  all  the  ideas, 
which  he  has  discerned  beneath  the  outward  seeming 
of  masterpieces  of  art  and  nature,  come  to  his  aid,  till 
at  last  ideas  and  images  mingled,  coalescing  and 
supporting  each  other,  are  so  entirely  fused  that  it 
is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  result  is  a  lyric,  a 
water-colour,  or  a  page  of  natural  history. 

"The  deep  of  air  that  surrounds  the  earth  enters 
into  union  with  the  earth  at  its  surface,  and  with  its 
waters ;  so  as  to  be  the  apparent  cause  of  their  as- 
cending into  life.  First,  it  warms  them,  and  shades, 
at  once,  staying  the  heat  of  the  sun's  rays  in  its  own 
body,  but  warding  their  force  with  its  clouds.  It 
warms  and  cools  at  once,  with  traffic  of  balm  and 
frost ;  so  that  the  white  wreaths  are  withdrawn  from 
the  field  of  the  Swiss  peasant  by  the  glow  of  Libyan 


II.   IMAGERY  107 

rock.  It  gives  its  own  strength  to  the  sea,  forms 
and  fills  every  cell  of  its  foam ;  sustains  the  preci- 
pices, and  designs  the  valleys  of  its  waves ;  gives  the 
gleam  to  their  moving  under  the  night,  and  the  white 
fire  to  their  plains  under  sunrise ;  lifts  their  voices 
along  the  rocks,  bears  above  them  the  spray  of  birds, 
pencils  through  them  the  dimpling  of  unfooted  sands. 
It  gathers  out  of  them  a  portion  in  the  hollow  of 
its  hand  :  dyes, with  that,  the  hills  into  dark  blue,  and 
their  glaciers  with  dying  rose;  inlays  with  that,  for 
sapphire,  the  dome  in  which  it  has  to  set  the  cloud; 
shapes  out  of  that  the  heavenly  flocks :  divides  them, 
numbers,  cherishes,  bears  them  on  its  bosom,  calls 
them  to  their  journeys,  waits  by  their  rest;  feeds  from 
them  the  brooks  that  cease  not,  and  strews  with  them 
the  dews  that  cease.  It  spins  and  weaves  their  fleece 
into  wild  tapestry,  rends  it,  and  renews ;  and  flits 
and  flames,  and  whispers,  among  the  golden  threads, 
thrilling  them  with  a  plectrum  of  strange  fire  that  tra- 
verses them  to  and  fro,  and  is  enclosed  in  them  like 
life. 

"  It  enters  into  the  surface  of  the  earth,  subdues  it, 
and  falls  together  with  it  into  fruitful  dust,  from  which 
can  be  moulded  flesh  ;  it  joins  itself,  in  dew,  to  the 
substance  of  adamant ;  and  becomes  the  green  leaf  out 
of  the  dry  ground  ;  it  enters  into  the  separated  shapes 
of  the  earth  it  has  tempered,  commands  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  the  current  of  their  life,  fills  their  limbs  with 
its  own  lightness,  measures  their  existence  by  its 
indwelling  pulse,  moulds  upon  their  lips  the  words  by 
which  one  soul  can  be  known  to  another ;  is  to  them 


io8  HIS    WORDS 

the  hearing  of  the  ear,jind  the  beating  of  the  heart; 
and,  passing  away,  leaves  them  to  the  peace  that  hears 
and  moves  no  more." 

Something  however  would  still  be  lacking  if  this  con- 
fused mass  of  ideas  and  images  contained  the  whole  of 
Ruskin,  and  if,  with-jour  intelligence  sated,  and  our 
imagination  filled,  he- either  left  us  there  or  else  per- 
petually prepared  the  same  feast  for  the  imagination, 
the  same  repast  for  the  intelligence.  Others  also  in 
art  criticism  have  known  how  to  evolve  the  ideal  from 
things  of  sense,  and  to  make  the  one  a  relief  to  the 
other.  Others  have  painted  while  thinking,  and  have 
thought  while  painting,  have  fed  their  poetry  on  the 
hidden  meaning  of  nature  and  adorned  science  with  the 
visible  charms  of  her  beauty.  But  a  moment  comes 
when  the  variety  of  all  this  cunning  dilettantism,  ceasing 
to  refresh,  becomes  stale  and  tiresome.  Passing  hues, 
ideas  flashing  and  reflecting,  new  points  of  view  open- 
ing out,  always  the  same  landscape  seen  from  different 
peaks,  the  relating  of  facts  and  the  analysis  of  race — 
a  spectacle  so  compounded  does  not  suffice  to  call  into 
play  the  whole  of  our  being.  Pleasures  of  imagination, 
pleasures  of  the  intellect  do  not  suffice  alone  for  life. 
Our  instinct  seeks  something  more,  something  to  en- 
chain, to  captivate,  to  animate  these  ideas  and  images, 
something  which  may  not  only  attract  our  philosophic 
and  artistic  nature,  but  in  addition  may  command  all  in 
us  which  is  neither  the  one  nor  the  other — something 
to  touch  the  human  soul  more  profoundly  and  more 
enduringly — a  passion  that  will  knit  us  yet  closer  to 
the  religion  of  the  Beautiful. 


f 


CHAPTER    III 

PASSION 

AND  this  passion  is  that  of  love.  All  art  critics  have 
written,  many  have  philosophised,  few  have  loved. 
Too  often  we  find  the  authenticity  of  a  picture  dis- 
cussed, as  though  it  were  security  on  a  mortgage,  and 
the  soul  of  the  writer  is  as  the  soul  of  a  commission 
agent,  unmoved  by  its  loveliness.  The  reader  soon 
tires  of  seeing  without  understanding ;  he  tires  also 
of  understanding  without  seeing;  but  he  will  weary 
alike  of  seeing  and  understanding  if  he  may  not  love. 
With  Ruskin  we  understand,  we  see,  and  we  love] 
and  by  this  last  I  mean  that  he  invokes  passion  in 
favour  of  an  epoch,  a  people,  or  the  talent  of  an  artist ; 
and  as  soon  as  we  perceive  by  what  living  fibres  a 
statue  or  a  portrait  is  chained  to  our  own  lives,  their 
joys,  their  sufferings,  their  misfortunes,  and  their 
welfare,  we  become  at  once  zealous  partisans.  Dilet- 
tantism, the  disinterested  curiosity  of  the  aesthete,  is 
not  Ruskin's  affair  and  he  derides  it.  In  Lessing 
we  find  arguments  of  the  same  order  more  logically 
connected,  and  with  Michelet  the  same  imagery  better 
followed  out.  Stendhal  gives  us  psychology,  Topffer 
humour,  Fromentin  technique,  Winckelmann  dialectic, 


no  HIS    WORDS 

Th.  Gautier  colour,  Reynolds  instruction,  Taine  genera- 
lisation, Charles  Blanc  selection;  but  Ruskin  gives 
us  love.  Notes  of  enthusiasm  or  of  anger  sound 
throughout  his  books :  the  arguments  to  which  we 
have  alluded  serve  only  as  engines  of  propaganda, 
the  images  he  has  called  up  appear  only  as  material 
evidence.  If  both  the  one  and  the  other  are  chaotic, 
it  is  because  the  hand  of  the  advocate  trembled  with 
emotion  as  he  marshalled  them  under  the  eye  of  the 
judge,  his  reader.  Taken  one  by  one  these  passages- 
are  not  superior  to  many  others  in  our  own  literature, 
but  taken  together,  and  quickened  by  the  passion  of] 
the  fighter,  they  carry  us  off  our  feet.  Here  love  is 
the  cinematograph  to  give  them  back  their  life. 

Love  also,  as  it  penetrates  every  detail  with  a 
tenderness  we  might  call  Virgilian,  smoothes  away 
the  wrinkles  of  the  pedant  and  corrects  the  poses  of 
the  virtuoso.  Why  have  we  those  thirty  pages  on 
clouds,  on  their  equilibrium,  on  the  projection  of  their 
shadows,  on  their  geometrical  forms,  their  fleecy 
masses,  their  chariots  ?  Because  it  must  be  shown 
that  Turner,  who  has  been  a  scoff  and  a  mockery, 
"  stands  more  absolutely  alone  in  this  gift  of  cloud- 
drawing,  than  in  any  other  of  his  great  powers  .  .  . 
none  but  he  ever  drew  them  truly." 

Why  these  sixteen  pages  on  the  branches  of  trees  ? 
Because  against  certain  interpretations  of  Claude 
Lorraine  must  be  vindicated  the  surpassing  beauty 
of  branches  and  their  ramifications  which  that  classic 
painter  expresses,  much  as  a  knapsack  would  express 


III.  PASSION  in 

human  shoulders,  "and  if  it  be  still  alleged  that  such 
work  is  nevertheless  enough  to  give  any  one  an  '  idea ' 
of  a  tree,  I  answer  that  it  never  gave,  nor  ever  will 
give,  an  idea  of  a  tree  to  any  one  who  loves  trees." 

Thus  understood  the  description  has  nothing  in  it 
artificial  or  rhetorical.  It  is  not  an  intellectual  pastime ; 
often  it  were  truer  to  say  it  is  a  heartache.  Read  for 
instance  the  preface  to  Queen  of  the  Air,  written  at 
Vevey  amidst  the  smoke  of  factories  and  steamboats. 

"This  first  day  of  May,  1869,  I  am  writing  where 
my  work  was  begun  thirty-five  years  ago,  within  sight 
of  the  snows  of  the  higher  Alps.  In  that  half  of  the 
permitted  life  of  man,  I  have  seen  strange  evil  brought 
upon  ever)-  scene  that  I  best  loved,  or  tried  to  make 
beloved  by  others.  The  light  which  once  flushed 
those  pale  summits  with  its  rose  at  dawn,  and  purple 
at  sunset,  is  now  umbered  and  faint;  the  air  which 
once  inlaid  the  clefts  of  all  their  golden  crags  with 
azure  is  now  defiled  with  languid  coils  of  smoke, 
belched  from  worse  than  volcanic  fires ;  their  very 
glacier  waves  are  ebbing,  and  their  snows  fading,  as 
if  Hell  had  breathed  on  them ;  the  waters  that  once 
sank  at  their  feet  into  crystalline  rest  are  now  dimmed 
and  foul,  from  deep  to  deep,  and  shore  to  shore. 
These  are  no  careless  words — they  are  accurately — 
horribly — true.  I  know  what  the  Swiss  lakes  were  ; 
no  pool  of  Alpine  fountain  at  its  source  was  clearer. 
This  morning,  on  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  at  half  a  mile 
from  the  beach,  I  could  scarcely  see  my  oar-blade  a 
fathom  deep. 


ii2  HIS    WORDS 

"  The  light,  the  air,  the  waters,  all  defiled  !  How  of 
the  earth  itself?  Take  this  one  fact  for  type  of  honour 
done  by  the  modern  Swiss  to  the  earth  of  his  native 
land.  There  used  to  be  a  little  rock  at  the  end  of 
the  avenue  by  the  port  of  Neuchatel ;  there,  the  last 
marble  of  the  foot  of  Jura,  sloping  to  the  blue  water, 
and  (at  this  time  of  year)  covered  with  bright  pink 
tufts  of  Saponaria.  I  went,  three  days  since,  to 
gather  a  blossom  at  the  place.  The  goodly  native 
rock  and  its  flowers  were  covered  with  the  dust  and 
refuse  of  the  town ;  but,  in  the  middle  of  the  avenue, 
was  a  newly-constructed  artificial  rockery,  with  a 
fountain  twisted  through  a  spinning  spout,  and  an 
inscription  on  one  of  its  loose-tumbled  stones, — 

"  Aux  Botanistes, 
Le  club  Jurassique." 

Ah,  masters  of  modern  science,  give  me  back  my 
Athena  out  of  your  vials,  and  seal,  if  it  may  be,  once 
more,  Asmodeus  therein.  You  have  divided  the 
elements,  and  united  them ;  enslaved  them  upon  the 
earth,  and  discerned  them  in  the  stars.  Teach  us, 
now,  but  this  of  them,  which  is  all  that  man  need 
know, — that  the  Air  is  given  to  him  for  his  life ;  and 
the  Rain  to  his  thirst,  and  for  his  baptism;  and  the 
Fire  for  warmth;  and  the  Sun  for  sight;  and  the 
Earth  for  his  meat — and  his  Rest." 

Be  not  surprised  at  this  cry  of  distress  about  smoke 
which  passes  away  nor  at  these  tears  over  a  "  tuft  of 
saponaria  "  which  has  missed  the  call  of  spring.     This 


III.    PASSION  113 

passion  is  all  of  the  virtuoso  there  is  in  Ruskin.  He 
describes  only  because  he  loves.  His  affection  is  be- 
stowed on  everything  which  pleases  the  eye ; — on  the 
crystals  of  which  he  has  celebrated  the  virtues,  the 
caprices,  the  quarrels,  the  sorrows  and  the  slumbers ; 
on  the  mountains  which  he  calls  the  muscles  and  the 
sinews  of  the  body  of  the  earth  distended  by  furious 
and  convulsive  energy ;  on  the  plains  and  the  low 
hills — its  repose  or  ease  wThile  the  muscles  rest  or 
sleep ;  on  the  snows  and  the  glaciers  whose  journeys 
he  has  sung ;  and  on  the  stones  whose  history  he 
has  told,  "the  iris  of  the  earth,"  "the  living  waves," 
bruma  artifex  and  the  "  schism  of  the  mountains." 
He  bestows  it  on  all  plants,  on  those  which  have  their 
habitation  on  the  soil,  like  the  lilies,  or  on  the  surface 
of  the  rocks  or  the  trunks  of  other  plants,  like  the 
lichens  and  the  mosses.  Some  remain  a  year,  others 
many  years,  others  an  aeon,  but  all  when  they  perish 
pass  as  the  Arab  who  folds  his  tent,  "  poor  nomads  of 
the  vegetable  life  who  leave  no  record  of  themselves." 
And  also  on  the  builder  plants,  which  "  raise  a  struc- 
ture on  the  earth  and  thrust  deep  down  their  roots  " — 
the  architectural  plants.  It  is  given  alike  to  the  bud 
and  to  the  stalk  which  carries  the  buds,  sacrificing  to 
each  some  of  its  diameter,  like  "  the  spire  of  Dijon  or 
turretted  fountain  of  Ulm  or  the  columns  of  the 
Verona  " ;  and  also  to  the  leaf,  of  which  he  says,  "  If 
you  can  paint  a  leaf  you  can  paint  the  whole  world"; 
and  to  the  tree-trunk,  which  he  calls  "  a  messenger  to 
the  roots  "  ;  and  to  the  roots  themselves,  who  "  have  at 

H 


ii4  HIS    WORDS 

heart  the  same  desire ; — which  is,  the  one  to  grow  as 
straight  as  he  can  towards  bright  heaven,  the  other 
as  deep  as  he  can  into  dark  earth."  And  he  has 
tears  still  for  those  of  the  buds  which  have  never 
opened,  sacrificed  by  an  inflexible  law  to  the  beauty 
of  the  whole.  And  this  tenderness,  breathed  forth 
with  the  soft  voice  of  a  Virgil,  passes  over  the 
tops  of  forests  waving  in  the  wind,  descends  to  the 
motionless  leaves,  touches  the  little  recluses  with  the 
flowing  brush  of  a  Corot,  and  in  touching  them  infuses 
that  life  which  love  gives  to  all  that  is  beloved. 

"We  have  found  beauty  in  the  tree  yielding  fruit, 
and  in  the  herb  yielding  seed.  How  of  the  herb 
yielding  no  seed,  the  fruitless,  flowerless  lichen  of 
the  rock  ? 

"Lichen,  and  mosses  (though  these  last  in  their 
luxuriance  are  deep  and  rich  as  herbage,  yet  both  for 
the  most  part  humblest  of  the  green  things  that  live), 

how  of  these  ?     Meek  creatures  !  the  first  mercy  of 

the  earth,  veiling  with  hushed  softness  its  dintless 
rocks ;  creatures  full  of  pity,  covering  with  strange  and 
tender  honour  the  scarred  disgrace  of  ruin, — laying 
quiet  finger  on  the  trembling  stones,  to  teach  them 
rest.  No  words,  that  I  know  of,  will  say  what  these 
mosses  are.  None  are  delicate  enough,  none  perfect 
enough,  none  rich  enough.  How  is  one  to  tell  of  the 
rounded  bosses  of  furred  and  beaming  green, — the 
starred  divisions  of  rubied  bloom,  fine-filmed,  as  if  the 
Rock  Spirits  could  spin  porphyry  as  we  do  glass, — 
the  traceries  of  intricate  silver,  and   fringes  of  amber, 


III.  PASSION  115 

lustrous,  arborescent,  burnished  through  every  fibre 
into  fitful  brightness  and  glossy  traverses  of  silken 
change,  yet  all  subdued  and  pensive,  and  framed  for 
simplest,  sweetest  offices  of  grace  ?  They  will  not  be 
gathered  like  the  flowers,  for  chaplet  or  love-token  ; 
but  of  these  the  wild  bird  will  make  its  nest,  and  the 
wearied  child  his  pillow. 

"And,  as  the  earth's  first  mercy,  so  they  are  its  last 
gift  to  us.  When  all  other  service  is  vain,  from  plant 
and  tree,  the  soft  mosses  and  gray  lichen  take  up  their 
watch  by  the  head-stone.  The  woods,  the  blossoms, 
the  gift-bearing  grasses,  have  done  their  parts  for  a 
time,  but  these  do  service  for  ever.  Trees  for  the 
builder's  yard,  flowers  for  the  bride's  chamber,  corn 
for  the  granary,  moss  for  the  grave." 

The  human  note  touched  by  Ruskin  when  he  calls 
up  the  idea  of  man  who  suffers  and  remembers  amid 
the  joys  of  expanding  nature  which  remembers  not, 
allures  those  who  would  not  have  been  persuaded  by 
mere  admiration  for  the  beauty  of  plants  themselves. 
For  with  Ruskin  pity  for  humanity  seldom  fails  to 
trouble  his  admiration  for  things.  Flowers  do  not 
hide  men  from  him  as  did  the  roses  of  Heliogabalus. 
Works,  even  works  of  art,  do  not  make  him  forget  the 
workers.  In  the  silent  museum,  among  the  exquisite 
or  the  grandiose  creations  that  past  centuries  have 
provided  for  our  pleasure,  Ruskin  thinks  of  the  present 
century,  and  when  injustice  triumphs  and  the  wail  of 
misery  arises,  he  turns  from  the  pictures  and  sends 
forth  a   cry  of  anger  against  the   realities  of  things, 


n6  HIS    WORDS 

which  appeals  to  those  who  have  been  deaf  to  his  cry 
of  ecstasy.  One  day  at  Oxford,  while  he  was  conjur- 
ing up  before  his  pupils'  eyes  two  of  the  greatest 
pages  of  art  in  the  whole  world,  the  Last  Judgment 
of  Michael  Angelo  at  the  end  of  the  Sistine,  with  its 
fall  of  the  damned,  and  the  Paradise  of  Tintoretto 
filling  the  end  of  the  great  hall  of  the  Palace  of  the 
Doges  with  its  souls  in  bliss  rising  to  the  ceiling, 
descending  on  to  the  plinths,  overflowing  the  doors — 
at  the  moment  that  he  was  concluding  his  comparison 
between  these  two  chef-d'ceuvres  by  deploring  that 
the  Paradise  should  be  doomed  to  destruction  by  the 
bad  condition  of  the  hall,  all  of  a  sudden  he  stopped, 
thinking  of  other  misfortunes.  ...  It  was  Paris 
which  was  besieged,  Paris  a  prey  to  famine  and  fire, 
and  he  asked  if  justice  could  be  claimed  for  works 
of  art  when  there  was  no  pity  among  men.  .  .  .  And 
the  calm  dissertation  on  chronology  and  dialectic 
was  cut  short  by  an  excited  harangue,  which  thrilled 
his  auditors  to  the  innermost  fibre  of  their  hearts. 

"The  years  of  that  time  have  perhaps  come,  when 
we  are  to  be  taught  to  look  no  more  to  the  dreams 
of  painters,  either  for  knowledge  of  Judgment,  or  of 
Paradise.  The  anger  of  Heaven  will  not  longer,  I 
think,  be  mocked  for  our  amusement ;  and  perhaps 
its  love  may  not  always  be  despised  by  our  pride. 
Believe  me,  all  the  arts,  and  all  the  treasures  of  men, 
are  fulfilled  and  preserved  to  them  only,  so  far  as  they 
have  chosen  first,  with  their  hearts,  not  the  curse  of 
God,  but  His  blessing.    Our  Earth  is  now  encumbered 


III.   PASSION  117 

with  ruin,  our  Heaven  is  clouded  by  Death.  May  we 
not  wisely  judge  ourselves  in  some  things  now,  instead 
of  amusing  ourselves  with  the  painting  of  judgments 
to  come  ?  " 

Some  months  later  the  fusillades  of  Satory  inter- 
rupted his  dream  and  are  echoed  even  in  his  descrip- 
tions. It  is  indeed  a  case  of  "  the  heart  making  big 
the  words,"  according  to  the  old  writer's  adage,  caus- 
ing the  sestheticist,  before  the  hackneyed  picture  of 
an  illustrated  journal,  to  burst  forth  into  apostrophes, 
exasperated,  confused,  extravagant,  but  very  human 
and  very  rarely  found  among  the  words  of  art  critics 
or  collectors  of  curios. 

"  Did  you  chance,  my  friends,  any  of  you,  to  see, 
the  other  day,  the  83rd  number  of  the  Graphic,  with 
the  picture  of  the  Queen's  concert  in  it  ?  All  the 
fine  ladies  sitting  so  trimly,  and  looking  so  sweet, 
and  doing  the  whole  duty  of  woman — wearing  their 
fine  clothes  gracefully;  and  the  pretty  singer,  white- 
throated,  warbling  'Home,  sweet  home'  to  them,  so 
morally,  and  melodiously  !  Here  was  yet  to  be  our 
ideal  of  virtuous  life,  thought  the  Graphic!  Surely, 
we  are  safe  back  with  our  virtues  in  satin  slippers 
and  lace  veils; — and  our  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is 
come  again,  with  observation,  and  crown  diamonds 
of  the  dazzlingest.  Cherubim  and  Seraphim  in  toil- 
ettes de  Paris,  —  (bleu-de-ciel  —  vert  d'olivier-de  — 
Noe" — mauve  de  colombe-fusillee,)  dancing  to  Coote 
and  Tinney's  band;  and  vulgar  Hell  reserved  for 
the   canaille,  as   heretofore!      Vulgar  Hell    shall   be 


1 1  8  HIS    WORDS 

didactically  pourtrayed,  accordingly;  (see  page  17,) 
— Wickedness  going  its  ways  to  its  poor  Home — 
bitter-sweet.  Ouvrier  and  petroleuse — prisoners  at 
last — glaring  wild  on  their  way  to  die. 

"  Alas  !  of  these  divided  races,  of  whom  one  was 
appointed  to  teach  and  guide  the  other,  which  has 
indeed  sinned  deepest — the  unteaching,  or  the  un- 
taught ? — which  now  are  guiltless — these,  who  perish, 
or  those — who  forget  ? 

"  Ouvrier  and  petroleuse  ;  they  are  gone  their  way 
— to  their  death.  But  for  these,  the  Virgin  of  France 
shall  yet  unfold  the  oriflamme  above  their  graves,  and 
lay  her  blanched  lilies  on  their  smirched  dust.  Yes, 
and  for  these,  great  Charles  shall  rouse  his  Roland, 
and  bid  him  put  ghostly  trump  to  lip,  and  breathe  a 
point  of  war;  and  the  helmed  Pucelle  shall  answer 
with  a  wood-note  of  Domremy ;  yes,  and  for  these 
the  Louis  they  mocked,  like  his  master,  shall  raise 
his  holy  hands,  and  pray  God's  peace." 

Concluded  after  this  fashion,  the  analysis  of  a  work 
of  art  does  not  dry  up  the  heart.  The  study  of  im- 
pressions experienced,  the  culture  of  the  Ego,  has 
only  rendered  it  more  kindly  to  human  sorrow,  just  as 
a  tree  is  pruned  to  make  it  yield  more  fruit.  Ruskin 
warms  with  a  ray  of  love  his  analysis  of  the  human 
mind,  as  well  as  his  analysis  of  nature  and  his  ana- 
lysis of  art.  When  in  his  lectures  at  Woolwich  he 
probed  the  soul  of  the  young  soldier,  his  tenderness 
was  the  same  that  he  lavished  on  the  mosses  of  the 
forest  or  the  Paradise  of  Tintoretto. 


III.    PASSION  119 

"To  be  heroic  in  danger,"  cries  he,  in  appealing  to 
the  wives  of  the  English  officers,  "  is  little ;  you  are 
Englishwomen.  To  be  heroic  in  change  and  sway 
of  fortune  is  little ; — for  do  you  not  love  ?  To  be 
patient  through  the  great  chasm  and  pause  of  loss  is 
little ; — for  do  you  not  still  love  in  heaven  ?  But  to 
be  heroic  in  happiness ;  to  bear  yourselves  gravely 
and  righteously  in  the  dazzling  of  the  sunshine  of 
morning;  not  to  forget  the  God  in  whom  you  trust, 
when  He  gives  you  most ;  not  to  fail  those  who  trust 
you,  when  they  seem  to  need  you  least;  this  is  the 
difficult  fortitude.  It  is  not  in  the  pining  of  absence, 
not  in  the  peril  of  battle,  not  in  the  wasting  of  sickness, 
that  your  prayer  should  be  most  passionate,  or  3'our 
guardianship  most  tender.  Pray,  mothers  and  maidens, 
for  your  young  soldiers  in  the  bloom  of  their  pride ; 
pray  for  them,  while  the  only  dangers  round  them  are 
in  their  own  wayward  wills ;  watch  you,  and  pray, 
when  they  have  to  face,  not  death,  but  temptation." 

So  Love  it  is  which,  having  veiled  whatever  is  too 
minute  in  the  analysis,  mitigates  whatever  is  too 
paradoxical  in  the  irony  of  the  master.  But  the 
impulse  of  his  thoughts  proceeds  quite  as  often  from 
humour.  His  persiflage  disconcerts  those  whom  his 
lyrical  outbursts  exalt.  He  scatters  his  hearers, 
and  gathers  them  to  him  again ;  shocks  them  and 
charms  them  in  a  breath.  He  will  not  lull  you  to 
sleep  as  a  poet  with  the  rhythmic  flowing  of  a  tender 
and  noble  song;  but  at  his  most  lyric  moment  will 
rudely  wake  you  with  a  violent  paradox  propounded 


120  HIS    WORDS 

in  a  manner  familiar  and  slightly  oratorical,  and  indeed 
qualified  by  himself  as  too  antithetic. 

"The  only  absolutely  and  unapproachably  heroic 
element  in  the  soldier's  work  seems  to  be — that  he  is 
paid  little  for  it — and  regularly :  while  you  traffickers, 
and  exchangers,  and  others  occupied  in  presumably 
benevolent  business,  like  to  be  paid  much  for  it — and 
by  chance.  I  never  can  make  out  how  it  is  that  a 
knight-errant  does  not  expect  to  be  paid  for  his  trouble, 
but  a  pedlar-err  arri  always  does  ; — that  people  are  will- 
ing to  take  hard  knocks  for  nothing,  but  never  to  sell 
ribands  cheap ;  that  they  are  ready  to  go  on  fervent 
crusades,  to  recover  the  tomb  of  a  buried  God,  but 
never  on  any  travels  to  fulfil  the  orders  of  a  living 
one ;— that  they  will  go  anywhere  barefoot  to  preach 
their  faith,  but  must  be  well  bribed  to  practise  it,  and 
are  perfectly  ready  to  give  the  Gospel  gratis,  but  never 
the  loaves  and  fishes." 

Enough,  you  cry.  .  .  .  But  the  author  has  tired  even 
more  quickly  than  we.  His  irony  takes  no  delight  in 
itself  or  in  cold  and  fruitless  play.  For  it  does  not 
proceed  from  want  of  fellow-feeling  or  contempt  of 
mankind,  but  from  indignation  against  evil  and  hypoc- 
risy,— that  is  to  say  from  love, — not  from  a  heart 
which  does  not  beat,  but  from  a  heart  which  beats 
too  quickly. 

Even  his  habit  of  paradox  is  but  a  means  to  vary 
effects  and  another  form  of  passion ;  and  it  leads 
always  to  charity.  Ruskin  tells  us  that  we  should 
take  for  a  device  of  noble  life,  "Let  us  eat  and  drink, 


III.    PASSION  121 

for  to-morrow  we  die."  Is  this  a  paradox  ?  No ; 
listen  to  what  follows :  " .  .  .  but  let  us  all  eat  and 
drink.  And  not  a  few  only,  enjoining  fast  to  the  rest." 
"  Dress  yourselves  nicely  and  dress  everybody  else 
nicely.  Lead  the  fashions  for  the  poor  first,  make 
them  look  well  first,  and  you  yourselves  will  look — in 
ways  of  which  you  have  now  no  conception — all  the 
better,"  says  he  to  women,  and  he  goes  on  to  develop 
his  thought  with  an  irony  so  keen  that  it  would  be 
unbearable,  did  not  his  sarcasm  melt  into  a  love-song 
as  legendary  sword-points  of  old  blossomed  into 
flowers. 

"  Let  those  arches  and  pillars  .  .  .  alone,  young 
ladies  :  it  is  you  whom  God  likes  to  see  well  decorated, 
not  them.  Keep  your  roses  for  your  hair — your  em- 
broidery for  your  petticoats.  You  are  yourselves  the 
church,  dears ;  and  see  that  you  be  finally  adorned,  as 
women  professing  godliness  with  the  precious  stone 
of  good  works,  which  may  be  quite  briefly  defined 
for  the  present,  as  '  decorating  the  entire  tabernacle ' ; 
and  clothing  your  poor  sisters  with  yourselves.  Put 
roses  also  in  their  hair,  put  precious  stones  also  on 
their  breasts ;  see  that  they  also  are  clothed  in  your 
purple  and  scarlet,  with  other  delights;  that  they 
also  learn  to  read  the  gilded  heraldry  of  the  sky ; 
and,  upon  the  earth,  be  taught,  not  only  the  labours 
of  it,  but  the  loveliness.  For  them,  also,  let  the  here- 
ditary jewel  recall  their  father's  pride,  their  mother's 
beauty." 

When  it  has  attained  these  heights  of  charity,  Love 


122  HIS    WORDS 

can  only  rise  higher  by  coming  to  Christ.  Is  it  to  be 
led  to  Him  by  a  theological  dissertation  ?  by  a  pious 
biography  ?  No,  but  by  one  of  the  most  secular 
things  in  the  world — a  lyric  which  the  aestheticist 
recites  smiling  at  the  end  of  a  lecture  on  the  educa- 
tion of  women,  entitled  "Queens'  Gardens,"  in  Sesame 
and  Lilies.  For  all  Ruskin's  aesthetical  passion  is 
saturated  with  the  poetry  which  the  Gospel  holds  in 
store  for  all,  even  for  singers  and  romanticists  who 
repudiate  its  teaching  but  echo  its  charm.  And  just 
when  the  last  words  seem  to  have  been  said — at  the 
moment  when  he  has  made  the  figures  in  the  fres- 
coes and  the  leaves  of  the  trees  speak  their  human 
utmost,  there  by  a  movement  of  infinite  adroitness 
he  sets  them  vibrating  to  the  harmonies  of  Heaven. 
And  those  fervent  or  mystic  souls  who  have  been 
already  guided  by  the  dignity  of  charity  to  the 
aesthetic  of  apparel  and  adornment,  attain  now  to 
the  true  aesthetic  of  the  plants  and  flowers,  which 
rise  like  Christ  in  the  spring-time  and  are  adorned 
with  fair  colours  by  the  subtle  perception  of  the  Divine 
Gardener : — 

" '  Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown, 
And  the  woodbine  spices  are  wafted  abroad, 
And  the  musk  of  the  roses  blown  ?' 

"Will  you  not  go  down  among  them? — among 
those  sweet  living  things,  whose  new  courage,  sprung 
from  the  earth  with  the  deep  colour  of  heaven  upon  it, 
is  starting  up  in  strength  of  goodly  spire ;  and  whose 


III.   PASSION  123 

purity,  washed  from  the  dust,  is  opening,  bud  by  bud, 
into  the  flower  of  promise  ; — and  still  they  turn  to  you, 
and  for  you,  '  The  Larkspur  listens — I  hear,  I  hear ! 
And  the  Lily  whispers — I  wait.' 

"  Did  you  notice  that  I  missed  two  lines  when  I 
read  }-ou  that  first  stanza ;  and  think  that  I  had 
forgotten  them  ?     Hear  them  now  : — 

"  '  Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
For  the  black  bat,  night,  has  flown, 
Come  into  the  garden,  Maud, 
I  am  here  at  the  gate,  alone.' 

"Who  is  it,  think  you,  who  stands  at  the  gate  of 
this  sweeter  garden  alone,  waiting  for  you  ?  Did  you 
ever  hear,  not  of  a  Maud,  but  a  Madeleine,  who  went 
down  to  her  garden  in  the  dawn,  and  found  One 
waiting  at  the  gate,  whom  she  supposed  to  be  the  gar- 
dener? Have  you  not  sought  Him  often; — sought 
Him  in  vain,  all  through  the  night; — sought  him  in 
vain,  at  the  gate  of  that  old  garden  where  the  fiery 
sword  is  set  ?  He  is  never  there ;  but  at  the  gate 
of  this  garden  He  is  waiting  always — waiting  to  take 
your  hand — ready  to  go  down  to  see  the  fruits  of  the 
valley,  to  see  whether  the  vine  has  flourished,  and  the 
pomegranate  budded.  There  you  shall  see  with  Him 
the  little  tendrils  of  the  vines  that  His  hand  is  guiding 
—there  you  shall  see  the  pomegranate  springing  where 
His  hand  cast  the  sanguine  seed  ; — more :  you  shall 
see  the  troops  of  the  angel  keepers  that,  with  their 
wings,  wave  away  the  hungry  birds  from  the  path-sides 
where  He  has  sown,  and  call  to  each  other  between 


124  HIS    WORDS 

the  vineyard  rows,  '  Take  us  the  foxes,  the  little  foxes, 
that  spoil  the  vines,  for  our  vines  have  tender  grapes.' 
Oh — you  queens — you  queens  !  among  the  hills  and 
happy  greenwood  of  this  land  of  yours,  shall  the  foxes 
have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests  ;  and  in 
your  cities,  shall  the  stones  cry  out  against  you,  that 
they  are  the  only  pillows  where  the  Son  of  Man  can 
lay  His  head  ?  " 

If  this  ecstatic  tone  were  prolonged  it  would  quickly 
exhaust  all  that  can  vibrate  in  us.  But  Ruskin 
presently  lowers  it  to  the  pitch  of  conversation,  and 
behold  the  prophet,  who  was  crying  upon  the  moun- 
tain, now  seated  in  a  rocking  chair,  and  crossing  his 
legs  to  read  the  newspaper ! 

While  enthusiasm  and  irony  contest  his  thought,  the 
period  and  the  brilliant  touch  fight  for  mastery  in  his 
style,  the  one  by  its  masterful  continuity,  to  sweep 
the  reader  away;  the  other  by  its  fanciful  mobility,  to 
save  him  from  exhaustion.  It  is  the  first  of  these 
two  forms  of  style,  which  predominates  in  the  earlier 
half  of  Ruskin's  life-work  from  1843  to  i860,  when 
Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  George  Herbert,  John- 
son, and  Gibbon  seem  to  have  been  his  models.  His 
great  phrases  with  their  facile  cadences  and  their 
sonorous  periods,  containing  as  many  as  619  words 
and  80  intermediate  signs  of  punctuation,  unroll  them- 
selves slowly,  like  those  long  waves  that  are  of  no 
moment  to  a  swimmer,  but  in  succession  curve  and 
swell  one  after  the  other  until  the  last  breaks,  and 
all  the  tossing  foam,  and  all   the   noisy  tumult  leave 


III.   PASSION  125 

scarcely  so  much  as  a  trace  of  brine  on  the  shore. 
And  all  this  hubbub  is  pervaded  by  a  science  of 
melody,  of  rhythm,  which,  if  we  are  to  believe  Mr. 
Frederick  Harrison,  is  "  without  rival  in  English 
literature."  But  after  i860  everything  is  changed. 
No  longer  have  we  that  passion  for  theory  of  a 
young  man  who  with  all  life  before  him  fights  de- 
liberately and  studies  his  attitudes.  We  become  con- 
scious of  a  combatant  who  means  once  for  all  to  strike 
home.  Those  long  waves  are  no  more ;  the  sea  is 
short  and  rude.  A  hail-storm  of  crisp  apt  phrases 
falls  upon  the  reader,  and  yet  for  all  their  brevity 
these  reflect  what  there  is  of  blessedness  in  earth 
and  heaven.  Here  is  a  very  armoury  of  sunrays. 
We  walk  no  longer  by  the  dim  light  of  the  Seven 
Lamps  of  Architecture  but  in  the  clear  Attic  sunshine 
of  the  Queen  of  the  Air.  Ruskin  has  washed  the 
bitumen  from  his  canvases,  and  even  repudiates  half- 
tones, not  graduating  the  passage  from  style  to  style 
any  more  than  the  painters  of  his  country  graduate 
the  intervals  of  their  discordant  tints.  He  will  not 
gloss  his  surface  over.  There  is  no  padding.  Every- 
thing is  ideas.  And  as  if  to  compress  a  greater 
number  of  ideas  into  the  space — like  those  flowers 
"  which  press  one  on  the  other  in  love " — not  only 
his  phrases  but  his  words  are  cut  short.  The  end 
of  the  preface  to  Queen  of  the  Air  is  almost  entirely 
composed  of  monosyllables.  It  seems  as  if  the 
splendours  of  style  embarrass  him  as  he  rises  into  the 
pure  region  of  philosophy,  and  like  an  aeronaut  who 


' 


126  HIS    WORDS 

in  order  to  mount  higher  throws  out  his  superfluous 
gear,  Ruskin  makes  jetsam  of  the  "  long  periods,"  and 
the  "bombastic  phrases,"  the  "  quaintnesses  "  of  the 
time  of  Elizabeth,  "  the  inversions,  the  long  exegetic 
sentences,"  and  the  purpurei  panni  and  the  cascade 
fashions  and  the  alliterations, — all  the  superfluities 
of  Seven  Lamps  and  of  Modem  Painters ,i--and  his 
style,  thereby  lightened,  makes  direct,  precise  and 
prompt,  for  its  goal. 

And  now  we  have  the  real  Ruskin,  and  may  gather 
here  the  ripest  though  not  the  most  brilliant  fruits 
of  his  mind :  intellectual  images  flowering  into  ideas, 
ideas  transformed  into  images,  reveries  developed  into 
polemics,  analyses  completed  by  acts  of  worship. 
Ruskin  still  keeps  enough  antithesis  to  give  him  dis- 
tinctness, sufficient  erudition  to  give  him  balance,  too 
much  poetry  to  let  him  grovel,  too  much  science  to 
let  him  soar,  and  to  save  him  from  being  quite  the 
dupe  of  his  heart,  he  retains  withal  a  certain  humour, 
and  to  save  him  from  being  at  all  the  dupe  of  his 
intellect,  a  great  store  of  love. 

In  illustration  of  this  we  may  cite  his  "Letter  to 
young  girls "  on  the  manner  in  which  they  should 
practice  charity. 

"  If  you  can  afford  it,  get  your  dresses  made  by  a 
good  dressmaker,  with  utmost  attainable  precision  and 
perfection ;  but  let  this  good  dressmaker  be  a  poor 
person,  living  in  the  country;  not  a  rich  person  living 
in  a  large  house  in  London.  Devote  a  part  of  every 
day    to    thorough    needlework,    in    making   as   pretty 


III.  PASSION 


127 


dresses  as  you  can  for  poor  people,  who  have  not 
time  nor  taste  to  make  them  nicely  for  themselves. 

"  Never  seek  for  amusement,  but  be  always  ready 
to  be  amused.  The  least  thing  has  play  in  it, — the 
slightest  word,  wit,  —  when  your  hands  are  busy 
and  your  heart  is  free.  But  if  you  make  the  aim 
of  life  amusement,  the  day  will  come  when  all  the 
agonies  of  a  pantomime  will  not  bring  you  an  honest 
laugh. 

"  What  of  fine  dress  your  people  insist  upon  your 
wearing,  take  —  and  wear  proudly  and  prettily,  for 
their  sakes;  but  so  far  as  in  you  lies,  be  sure  that 
every  day  you  are  labouring  to  clothe  some  poorer 
creatures.  And  if  you  cannot  clothe,  at  least  help 
with  your  own  hands.  You  can  make  your  own  bed ; 
wash  your  own  plate ;  brighten  your  own  furniture, — 
if  nothing  else. 

"Don't  fret  nor  tease  yourself  about  questions  of 
religion,  far  less  other  people.  Don't  wear  white 
crosses,  nor  black  dresses,  nor  caps  with  lappets. 
Nobody  has  a  right  to  go  about  in  an  offen- 
sively celestial  uniform,  as  if  it  were  more  their  busi- 
ness, or  privilege,  than  it  is  everybody's,  to  be  God's 
servants. 

"Help  your  companions,  but  don't  talk  religious 
sentiment  to  them  ;  and  serve  the  poor,  but  for  your 
lives,  you  little  monkeys,  don't  preach  to  them.  They 
are  probably  without  in  the  least  knowing  it,  fifty 
times  better  Christians  than  you;  and  if  anybody  is 
to  preach,  let  them.     Make  friends  of  them  when  they 


128  HIS    WORDS 

are  nice,  as  you  do  of  nice  rich  people  ;  feel  with  them, 
work  with  them,  and  if  you  are  not  at  last  sure  it  is 
a  pleasure  to  you  both  to  see  each  other,  keep  out  of 
their  way.  For  material  charity,  let  older  and  wiser 
people  see  to  it ;  and  be  content,  like  Athenian  maids 
in  the  procession  of  their  home-goddess,  with  the 
honour  of  carrying  the  basket." 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE    MODERN     SPIRIT 

THE  words  we  have  cited  are  instinct  with  the 
spirit  of  our  own  day.  They  are  full  of  analytical 
curiosity,  cosmopolitan  imagery,  and  human  tender- 
ness. No  other  epoch  could  have  inspired  or  have 
understood  them.  Consider  on  the  one  hand  what 
are  the  three  great  characteristics  of  our  modern  life. 
It  is  more  analytical  than  that  of  our  fathers,  that  is 
to  say,  it  examines  into  the  reason  of  its  impres- 
sions ;  it  is  more  cosmopolitan,  that  is  to  say,  it  is 
coloured  by  recollections  gleaned  from  a  larger  field ; 
and  it  is  more  socially  conscious,  that  is  to  say, 
more  conscious  of  the  difficulties  and  more  conscious 
of  the  strife  of  classes.  If  on  the  other  hand  one 
is  to  sum  up  the  impressions  which  the  Ruskinian 
criticism  leaves  with  us  as  compared  with  ordinary 
criticism,  we  perceive  that  it  embarks  on  a  more 
detailed  analysis  of  artistic  work — that  it  draws  its 
examples  from  a  greater  variety  of  countries  and 
landscapes,  and  that  it  is  more  penetrated  with  the 
social  significance  of  art  and  with  its  obscure  relations 
to  the  life  of  the  masses.  And  it  is  in  these  three 
most  obvious   aspects  of  his  work  that   the  man   of 

I2Q  J 


1 3o  HIS    WORDS 

Brantwood  is  seen  to  be  not  an  author  of  a  past  time, 
but  an  author  of  the  time  present  or  even  to  come. 
Each  day  which  passes  now,  like  a  leaf  which  falls 
from  a  tree,  reveals  a  little  more  of  the  heaven  that 
he  conceived.  As  our  life  becomes  more  and  more 
analytic,  more  wandering  and  more  restless,  as  we 
gain  greater  knowledge  and  more  store  of  imagina- 
tion and  of  human  pity,  so  we  feel  more  sympathy 
for  Ruskin's  science,  his  cosmopolitanism,  and  his 
social  theory.  Those  who,  deceived  by  the  Tory 
and  Lake-school  phases  of  his  mind,  term  him 
"antiquated"  and  out  of  date,  have  neither  under- 
stood his  work  nor  the  life  of  our  age. 

In  every  age  no  doubt  there  have  been  analysts  of 
nature  and  of  art,  but  they  have  not  always  had  at 
their  disposal  the  material  and  the  documents  either 
of  science  or  of  contemporary  historical  criticism.  In 
every  age  there  have  been  artists,  but  these  have 
not  always  been  able  to  select  examples  from  every 
museum  in  Europe,  to  study  the  hues  of  every  glacier, 
or  to  dip  their  brushes  in  the  water  of  every  lake.  In 
every  age  there  have  been  apostles,  and  hearts  full  of 
sympathy  for  the  misery  of  the  poor,  but  the  domi- 
nating idea  of  brotherhood  with  the  needy  has  not 
always  thus  haunted  the  mind  of  the  richer  classes. 
Nor  in  bygone  days  has  humanity  lived  continually 
in  gloomy  or  feverish  expectation  of  the  inaugura- 
tion of  a  new  era.  Ruskin  therefore — like  the  nurs- 
ling described  by  La  Bruyere  who,  strengthened  by 
her   milk,    turns   to   beat   his   nurse— is   fighting   his 


IV.  THE    MODERN    SPIRIT  131 

own   century,   and    the    very  words   he   uses    do    but 
reflect  the  force  of  what  he  execrates. 

In  listening  a  moment  ago  to  his  analytic  discourse^ 
we  were  reminded  of  Mazzini's  words :  "  Ruskin's  ] 
is  the  most  analytic  mind  in  Europe  at  this  moment." 
He  carries  scientific  investigation  into  the  very  heart,/' 
of  poetry — pulling  the  words  to  pieces  to  examine 
their  structure,  and  the  motive  of  their  imagery  or 
their  song ;  resolving  the  massing  of  clouds  into 
geometric  figures  the  better  to  understand  their  per- 
spective and  their  schemes  of  light  and  shade,  making  r 
a  study  of  the  geology  of  Turner's  mountains,  of  the 
botany  of  Claude  Lorraine's  trees,  of  the  psychology 
of  Delia  Robbia's  angels,  of  the  physiology  of  Polla- 
juolo's  or  Ghiberti's  birds,  of  the  pathology  of  the 
sculptured  head  of  Santa  Maria  Formosa,  of  the 
dynamics  of  the  bas-reliefs  of  John  of  Pisa, — search- 
ing all  science  to  find  scaffolding  for  his  aesthetical 
structure.  And  in  the  process  he  has  given  rein  to 
his  feelings  for  or  against  many  things — the  argu- 
ments of  Saussure,  of  Darwin,  of  Tyndall,  of  James 
Forbes,  of  Alphonse  Fabre,  of  Heim  ;  putting  forward 
his  own  theories  on  the  movement  of  serpents,  the 
progression  of  glaciers  ;  bethinking  him  as  he  faces 
a  Greek  or  a  Florentine  sculpture  of  the  "  variability 
of  species,"  ever  anxious  to  give  the  appearance  of 
scientific  experiment  to  his  systems.  His  books  as 
we  have  seen  are  filled  with  examples  disposed  in 
the  form  of  equations,  with  arguments  pro  and  con, 
and   sometimes  accompanied  by  diagrams.     As  early 


132  HIS    WORDS 

as  1845  at  Venice  he  was  studying  by  means  of 
the  daguerreotype  architectural  details,  which  till 
then  had  escaped  attention,  and  in  1849  ne  was 
photographing  the  Matterhorn  —  doubtless  the  first 
to  do  so.  To  turn  over  his  books  is  to  turn  the 
pages  of  a  Lionardo  manuscript,  pages  closely  packed, 
rich  and  sparkling — here  the  dimensions  of  a  cata- 
pult following  a  treatise  on  the  muscles,  sketches 
overlapping  mathematical  calculations,  caricatures  in- 
sinuating themselves  among  notes  on  volitation,  and 
mechanics  side  by  side  with  landscapes.  Ruskin,  like 
Lionardo,  felt  in  all  things  the  beauty  of  science,  and 
in  every  case  endeavoured  to  formulate  a  science  of 
beauty.  As  we  read  we  may  well  doubt  whether  he 
Ts  most  at  home  in  a  museum  or  a  laboratory ;  and 
the  figure  of  him  that  suggests  itself  is  such  as  that 
of  Pasteur  as  once  M.  Edelfeldt  represented  him, 
eye  and  thought  intent  upon  a  jar  which  he  handles 
in  the  brilliant  light  of  a  clinical  laboratory.  And  it 
ceases  to  astonish  us  that  Sir  John  Lubbock,  when 
asked  whether  Ruskin  or  Goethe  had  done  most  for 
science,  replied  that  Ruskin  had  "  undoubtedly  done 
very  much  more  valuable  work,  and  that  without  any 
pretensions  to  profound  scientific  knowledge,  he  had 
an  extraordinary  natural  gift  for  observation  and 
seemed  to  know  by  instinct  what  to  observe,  what 
was  important  amidst  so  much  that  was  fanciful 
and  poetical." 

In    our    first    glance   at  the    main    outlines    of  his 
opinions  we    noted  that  they  were  preoccupied  with 


IV.  THE    MODERN    SPIRIT  133 

social  theories  even  more  strongly  than  with  science. 
In  addition  to  those  works  which  treat  specially  of 
political  economy,  such  as  Unto  this  Last,  Munera 
Pulveris,  Time  and  Tide,  Crown  of  Wild  Olive, 
Fors  Clavigera,  A  Joy  for  Ever,  there  are  many 
others  that  touch  the  same  subject  at  some  point. 
The  sestheticist  has  rarely  been  able  to  write  a  whole 
chapter  on  Art  without  some  recollection  breaking  in 
upon  his  serenity — of  those  human  beings  "  who  have 
a  strong  objection  to  hearing  a  disquisition  on  Michael 
Angelo  when  they  are  cold."  Throughout  his  works 
Ruskin  is  the  same  man  who  from  the  Hotel  Danieli 
at  Venice  wrote  in  Fors  Clavigera : — 

"  Here  is  a  little  grey  cockle-shell,  lying  beside  me, 
which  I  gathered  the  other  evening,  out  of  the  dust 
of  the  Island  of  St.  Helena ;  and  a  brightly  spotted 
snail-shell,  from  the  thistly  sands  of  Lido ;  and  I  want 
to  set  myself  to  draw  these,  and  describe  them  in 
peace.  'Yes,'  all  my  friends  say,  'that  is  my  business; 
why  can't  I  mind  it,  and  be  happy  ? '  But  alas !  my 
prudent  friends,  little  enough  of  all  that  I  have  a  mind 
to  may  be  permitted  me.  For  this  green  tide  that 
eddies  by  my  threshold  is  full  of  floating  corpses,  and 
I  must  leave  my  dinner  to  bury  them,  since  I  cannot 
save :  and  put  my  cockle-shell  in  cap,  and  take  my 
staff  in  hand,  to  seek  an  unencumbered  shore." 

These  words  were  written  over  twenty  years  ago. 
They  might  well  have  seemed  incomprehensible  to 
the  dilettanti  travelling  that  winter  in  Italy.  But  in 
these  days  they  are  understood,  or  at  any  rate  there 


i34  HIS    WORDS 

is  some  inkling  abroad  of  their  profound  and  sad 
significance.  The  world  is  no  longer  surprised  if  the 
tourist  pays  as  much  attention  to  the  social  problems 
of  a  country,  in  which  he  travels,  as  to  its  stones  and 
monuments.  And  when  Ruskin  adds  that :  "  It  is 
the  vainest  of  affectations  to  try  and  put  beauty  into 
shadows,  while  all  real  things  which  cast  them  are 
left  in  deformity  and  pain,"  and  when  he  thereby 
makes  a  pretext  in  the  middle  of  a  dissertation  on 
Art  for  talking  to  us  of  strikes,  wages,  and  co-opera- 
tion, we  shall  find  his  words  even  more  applicable  to 
industrial  life  to-day  than  they  were  yesterday. 

At  any  rate  they  respond  to  the  nomadic  instinct 
in  us  and  to  our  cosmopolitan  curiosity.  Ruskin  is 
not  content  to  teach  at  Oxford  only ;  he  follows  his 
pupils  on  their  journeys  to  Amiens,  Florence,  and 
Venice, — to  save  them  from  the  heretical  suggestions 
of  Murray,  Baedeker,  Woerl,  and  such  like.  He 
follows  them  by  means  of  little  thin  volumes  of  twenty 
pages  for  pocket  use,  bound  in  pliant  covers,  quickly 
read,  and  easy  to  manage,  for  they  do  not  deprive  the 
disciple  of  a  hand  or  impede  him  in  the  purchase  of 
an  armful  of  almond  blossom  in  the  Lung'  Arno  on 
the  road  back  from  the  Uffizi,  nor  in  feeding  the 
pigeons  at  S.  Mark's  on  the  way  to  the  Palace  of  the 
Doges.  These  little  books  are  Mornings  in  Florence, 
S.  Mark's  Rest,  Our  Fathers  have  told  us,  and  The 
Bible  of  Amieits.  When  we  reach  the  chapel  or  the 
museum  out  comes  the  book,  and  this  little  whisper- 
ing demon  in  red,  all  promises,  and  surprises,  pierces 


IV.  THE    MODERN    SPIRIT  135 

the  old  walls  and  the  old  canvases,  and  through 
them  opens  out  to  us  horizons  of  ideas,  valleys  of 
dreams,  and  centuries  of  history.  It  is  as  though 
one  of  the  window-holes  in  that  interminable  corridor 
of  the  Ponte  Vecchio,  connecting  the  Uffizi  and  the 
Pitti  Palaces,  were  thrown  open,  and  we  turned  from 
the  innumerable  dingy  portraits  of  Grand  Dukes  to 
the  flowing  Arno  and  to  Florence,  and  to  the  marble 
mountains  and  the  gardens  and  the  snowy  summits, 
to  the  villas  of  the  Decameroni,  and  the  monasteries 
of  saints  and  the  loggias  and  the  porticos.  A  whole 
vision  of  living  nature,  bright  and  gay,  speaking 
straight  to  the  heart,  bursts  in  among  the  dead  things, 
saying  to  the  wanderer :  Weary  one !  Be  not  sad ! 
All  that  thou  seest  is  living  yet.  In  the  pictures  the 
trees  have  faded  and  the  flowers  are  brown,  but 
outside  there  are  green  forests,  and  perfumed  flowers, 
running  rivers,  smiling  women,  fighting  warriors, 
mobs  to  curse  or  applaud, — and  the  breezes  which 
sweep  through  the  tops  of  the  cypresses  of  San 
Miniato,  or  raise  the  lily  heads  at  Fiesole,  are  as 
strong  and  as  sweet  as  when  they  garnered  perfume 
of  white  lilies  for  Fra  Angelico,  or  blew  away  over 
the  blue  sky  golden  lilies  on  the  banners  of  Charles 
the  Eighth. 

By  thus  infusing  new  life  into  faded  works  of  art 
and  cities  grown  cold  with  age,  and  by  mingling 
with  his  criticism  the  unfailing  charm  of  nature  and 
melancholy  born  of  thought,  Ruskin  endows  us  with 
a  new  sense  to  wait  upon  our  travels.     Without  him 


136  HIS    WORDS 

we  had  a  great  deal — express  trains  enabling  us  to 
rush  from  one  monument  to  another  and  to  com- 
pare the  portal  of  Amiens  immediately  with  the 
bronze  gates  of  Ghiberti ;  sleeping-cars  allowing  us 
to  arrive  among  these  masterpieces  with  heads  clear 
and  minds  attuned,  prompt  to  receive  the  most  delicate 
messages  of  art.  We  had  hotels  and  the  almost 
magical  apparatus  of  modern  comfort  wherein  a 
finger  on  one  button  annihilates  distance,  on  another 
produces  light,  on  a  third  heat;  where  a  polyglot 
and  provident  establishment  spares  us  even  the 
fatigue  of  giving  an  order,  where  everything  tacitly 
conspires  to  leave  the  mind  its  penetrative  power 
unimpaired  between  one  museum  and  another,  and 
the  soul  all  its  strength  to  summon  up  the  ghosts  of 
past  ages  in  the  intervals  of  a  historian's  lectures. 
In  a  manner,  then,  we  had  all  that  was  needful  for. 
seeing  the  world ;  only  we  needed  an  excuse  for  so 
seeing  it  and  for  enjoying  it  when  we  saw.  Ruskin 
has  supplied  all  this.  We  were  walking  forward  on 
our  own  way;  he  came  and  opened  a  new  horizon. 
We  had  eyes  and  saw  not ;  Ruskin  gave  us  eyes  to 
see.  And  withal  he  gave  us  plausible  reasons  for  our 
wandering  habit,  and  noble  pretexts  for  our  amuse- 
ments, and  he  told  us  where  we  were  going  and 
why.  Chiefly  he  has  addressed  his  own  compatriots, 
and  because  they  believe  him  they  are  now  in- 
finitely more  observant  of  all  things  of  art  in  their 
path,  and  study  these  with  an  ecstatic  air  to  be 
sought  in  vain  among  such  as  do  not  belong  to  what 


IV.  THE    MODERN    SPIRIT  137 

the    sacristans    in    Italy    already    term    "  the    Ruskin 
Brotherhood." 

But  do  they  really  understand  these  things  the 
better  ?  I  dare  not  wager  so,  but  at  least  they 
know  that  an  Englishman  has  understood  them. 
Have  they  a  greater  enjoyment  of  them  ?  At  least 
they  know  that  one  of  their  own  race  and  faith 
has  enjoyed  them,  and  that  for  scientific  reasons 
and  with  moral  motives,  which  it  is  honourable  to 
share.  He  it  is  who  by  his  sense  of  history,  and  the 
raising  of  dead  men  to  life,  has  made  them  realise 
that  countless  generations  have  paused  in  front  of 
these  monuments  "with  admiration,  joy,  and  love." 
Therefore  we  also  now  admire,  enjoy,  and  love.  And 
by  this  continuity  of  worship,  we  seem  to  be  linked 
with  the  great  world-soul  which  has  vibrated  and  will 
ever  vibrate  in  contemplation  of  the  same  horizons. 
On  the  balcony  of  the  Palace  of  the  Doges,  or  at 
the  windows  of  the  Campanile  of  Santa  Maria  del 
Fiore,  or  again  on  the  highest  turret  of  the  Cathedral 
of  Milan,  whence  may  be  espied  the  fleecy  blue  of 
the  distant  Alps,  should  you  cast  a  glance  at  the 
stones  on  which  you  lean  you  will  see  them  scrawled 
and  hacked  with  inscribed  names  and  dates — names 
of  inhabitants  of  every  village  in  Europe,  and  dates  of 
every  year,  good  or  bad,  in  the  latter  half  of  this 
century.  All  these  folk  of  humble  condition — mainly 
German  or  English,  who  occupy  most  of  the  time 
they  spend  there  in  writing  their  unknown  names 
on   these   illustrious   marbles,  in  attaching  something 


138  HIS    WORDS 

of  their  ephemeral  life  to  these  all  but  eternal  monu- 
ments —  these  folk  are  feeling  some  instinctive  de- 
sire to  join  in  admiration  with  the  rest  of  humanit}'. 
Assuredly  they  acquire  a  sense  of  increased  nobility 
by  contact  with  these  monuments,  the  goal  of  so 
many  pilgrimages ;  and  they  imagine  they  are  honour- 
ing themselves,  while  in  fact  they  dishonour  the 
monument  by  their  shameless  scrawls.  This  rare 
visit  is  a  gleam  of  poetry,  in  their  existence,  to  be 
recalled  again  and  again,  while  they  sew  by  the 
hearth  at  home  or  smoke  in  the  halls  of  the  "  Bier- 
brauerei," — nameless  travellers,  swift-flowing  ripples 
of  the  river,  chasing  each  other  past  a  town,  and 
reflecting  for  an  instant  the  palaces,  the  cathedrals, 
the  mountains,  the  forests,  and  all  the  transient  and 
diverse  colours  of  the  banks,  and  thence  returning 
to  the  ocean  whence  they  came — to  the  crowd  and 
routine  of  every  day,  and  the  grey  monotonous  life, 
with  no  light  to  cast  a  shade.  .  .  .  But  if  at  the 
moment  that  these  rays  darted  upon  the  wayfarers 
they  were  asked,  "  What  is  it  you  think  ?  What 
is  it  you  feel  ? "  they  would  not  be  able  to  say. 
They  who  have  read  Ruskin  would  know — for  what 
they  have  not  seen  in  the  heavens  they  find  in  his 
diagrams,  what  they  have  not  divined  in  the  stones 
they  discover  in  his  antitheses,  what  they  have  for- 
gotten to  love  among  tangible  and  living  realities, 
they  adore  in  the  images  which  a  great  poet  has 
painted  in  tones  of  love. 

Ruskin   may   be   said   then   to   speak   to   us   as  a 


IV.  THE    MODERN    SPIRIT  139 

cicerone  more  than  as  a  professor  or  a  theorist  on 
society.  He  magnifies  his  functions  into  a  divine 
mission  and  turns  the  inn,  wherein  he  preaches,  to  a 
temple,  which  need  not  be  the  less  sacred  to  us 
because  it  happens  to  be  provided  with  lifts  and 
electric  light.  We  can  be  thrilled  in  a  castle  by  the 
recollection  of  the  sojourn  of  a  king,  or  in  a  monas- 
tery which  shows  us  the  dwelling  of  a  saint.  For  the 
castle  was  formerly  the  outward  sign  of  power ;  the 
monastery  that  of  zeal  and  devotion.  Both  stood  on 
mountains  or  plains  as  abiding-places  for  those  who 
sought  to  know  the  world  in  its  grandeur  or  in  its 
charity.  In  these  days  when  kings  alight  at  hotels, 
and  when  wandering  saints  neither  wear  peculiar 
garb  nor  dwell  amid  ideal  architecture,  the  inn  has 
inherited  the  poetry  of  the  ancient  manorial  or  mon- 
astic building.  It  may  be  an  ancient  palace,  as 
at  Venice ;  or  it  may  be  the  precincts  of  a  chapel,  as 
on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  So  an  apostle 
may  well  teach  there,  and  his  eloquence  may  be 
displayed  without  let  or  hindrance.  Ruskin  is  just 
such  an  apostle  of  cosmopolitan  caravansaries.  He 
is  like  an  archangel  to  Cook's  tourists,  or  a  railway- 
station  prophet,  and  the  locomotive  gives  him  night 
and  day  his  column  both  of  fire  and  smoke.  In  the 
days  gone  by,  the  days  of  undisturbed  lives  and 
rooted  existences,  this  function  of  an  aestheticist,  and 
teacher  of  the  people,  would  not  have  been  under- 
stood. But  now  that  restless  humanity  upsets  its 
household  gods,  extinguishes  the  fire  on  its  hearth, 


140  HIS    WORDS 

and  goes  forth  to  visit  every  shrine,  to  the  foot  of 
every  mountain,  to  cities  long  dead  but  still  cherished 
as  reliquaries  of  the  past — to  gather  knowledge  con- 
cerning this  earth  which  we  find  too  small  and  that 
past  which  we  find  too  short — now  that  doubtful  of 
the  future  we  seek  rather  to  prolong  our  existence 
in  this  world,  to  live  through  past  centuries  by 
identifying  ourselves  with  lives  pictured  only  in 
museums,  or  to  get  experience  of  the  complex  life 
and  aspirations  of  the  crowds  about  our  path — surely 
for  such  an  age  this  aesthetical  guide  becomes  like  the 
priest — a  minister  of  the  Infinite.  .  .  .  He  brings  back 
for  us  the  life  of  buried  ages  and  unknown  peoples. 
His  words  endow  us  with  life;  they  are  the  life  we 
lead  and  still  more  the}'  are  the  life  we  desire  to  lead 
— analytic  like  our  scientific  life,  suggestive  like  our 
cosmopolitan  life,  unquiet  like  our  social  life.  These 
words  share  all  the  vivacity  of  life,  because  they  touch 
on  all  subjects,  and  guide  towards  all  lands ;  share 
all  its  contradictions,  because  they  reflect  all  impres- 
sions and  all  systems;  share  all  its  subtlety,  because 
they  mingle  enthusiasm  with  irony  and  humour  with 
love.  And  if  here  and  there  they  seem  to  hold 
something  of  mystery,  may  it  not  be  because  life 
with  its  ever  recurring  problems  and  infinity  is 
scarcely  less  mysterious  than  death  itself.  .  .  . 


PART    I  I  I 
HIS  ESTHETIC   AND   SOCIAL    THOUGHT 


PART    III 
HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

ANCIENT  wisdom  has  said  that  it  is  impossible  to 
plunge  twice  into  a  river  and  find  it  the  same  flood. 
As  we  close  the  varied  volumes  filled  with  striking 
pages  of  analysjs^  imagery,  and  passion,  we  feel  in- 
clined to  echo, .  It  is  impossible  to  plunge  twice  and 
find  the  same  Ruskin.  His  contradictions  are  the  joy 
of  his  adversaries,  and  furrow  as  with  a  plough  the 
foreheads  of  his  disciples.  M.  Augustin  Filon  once 
stated  that  he  would  undertake  to  extract  from  the 
works  of  Ruskin  the  most  contradictory  doctrines, 
and  Mr.  Whistler  amused  himself  by  collecting  into 
a  large  volume  aphorisms  which  may  be  said  to  rival 
in  distinctness  that  renowned  artist's  Symphony  in 
Black.  After  reading  one  page  of  the  Master  we 
think  we  have  grasped  his  idea ;  after  reading  ten  we 
feel  doubtful ;  after  twenty  we  are  lost.  With  all  the 
subtleties,  all  the  waverings,  all  the  convolutions  of 
his  various  aesthetical,  religious,  and  social  systems, 
he  is  ever  an  ethereal  and  elusive  magician.  If  we 
try  to  imprison  him  in  a  logical  formula,  he  escapes 

in  smoke  like  the  genius  of  the    Thousand  and  one 

143 


144    HIS  ^ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

Nights,  and  we  seem  to  have  before  us  a  host  of 
little  things,  precious  and  varied,  glittering  and  attrac- 
tive, but  fitful  and  changeful  as  the  flame  or  the 
wave. 

And  yet  the  river  remains  the  same,  and  flows  in 
the  same  place,  and  is  called  by  the  same  name  as 
when  our  grandfather  took  us  by  the  hand  to  show 
it  us  for  the  first  time.  This  leaping  flame  which 
peoples  with  strange  figures  the  great  hall  of  the  old 
family  mansion  recalls  in  its  general  aspect  the  flame 
that  warmed  our  childish  fingers,  and  gave  us  the 
beautiful  dreams  now  vanished  up  the  chimney.  No 
wave  is  precisely  the  wave  of  yesterday,  but  the  river 
is  unchanged.  No  flame  reproduces  photographically 
the  arabesques  of  years  gone  by,  but  the  hearth  is 
unchanged.  Ruskin  is  like  a  river  and  like  a  flame. 
He  never  resembles  himself,  he  renews  himself 
unceasingly,  and  yet  he  is  always  the  same.  His 
thoughts  spring  ever  from  the  same  lofty  region. 
They  go  ever  to  swell  the  same  far-distant  ocean. 
What  is  this  source  ?     Where  is  this  ocean  ? 

Let  us  go  in  search  of  it.  If  in  the  search  we 
disturb  some  established  prejudice  founded  on  some 
isolated  text  of  Ruskin's,  our  excuse  must  be  the  fact 
that  this  is  not  an  analysis  of  one  or  other  of  his  works, 
but  a  general  view  of  his  thought  from  1843  UP  to 
1888, — his  thoughts  on  Nature,  his  thoughts  on  Art, 
his  thoughts  on  Life.  And  if  perchance  disciples  more 
ardent  than  clear-sighted,  or  adversaries  more  ingenious 
than  honest,  have  even  in  England  adopted  some  false 


HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT     145 

ideas  of  the  Ruskinian  doctrine,  this  proves  nothing 
against  the  accuracy  of  the  synthesis  which  follows, 
but  pleads  only  for  its  necessity.  Texts  of  the  Master 
which  seem  to  contradict  us  may  indeed  be  easy 
to  find,  and  as  these  texts  are  always  aphoristic 
and  absolute  in  form,  they  seem  to  exclude  any 
other  opinion.  This  is  not,  however,  really  the  case. 
They  are  back-waters  of  the  stream,  eddies  which 
momentarily  and  locally  run  counter  to  the  current, 
but  they  do  not  change  it.  And  even  their  violence 
does  not  affect  the  trend  we  believe  we  discern  and 
wish  to  determine  in  his  thought. 

That  thought — let  there  be  no  mistake — is  Ruskin's 
not  ours.  If  we  propound  it  in  all  its  native  force, 
it  is  a  proof  not  of  our  adherence  but  of  our  loyalty. 
We  deem  it  neither  useful  nor  opportune  to  delay  the 
statement  and  complicate  our  scrutiny  by  personal  re- 
marks and  reservations.  To  be  discussed  a  doctrine 
must  be  known.  We  give  that  of  Ruskin.  Once 
completely  realised,  whoever  will  can  contest  it. 


K 


CHAPTER    I 

" NATURE " 

Are  there  not  more  things  aesthetic  in  heaven  and 
earth  than  are  dreamt  of  in  our  philosophy  ?  Are 
not  men  more  often  guided  by  sight  than  by  reason  ? 
Is  it  only  children  who  look  through  the  pages  of 
picture-books,  and  who  forget  as  they  look  the  realities 
of  life  ?  Of  this  life  we  assuredly  know  already  many 
things.  The  chemist  takes  a  plant,  carries  it  into  his 
laboratory,  analyses  it,  submits  it  to  a  multiplicity  of 
tests,  and  tells  us  of  how  many  elements  it  is  composed, 
how  much  nitrogen,  how  much  lime,  how  it  grows  and 
why  it  is  developed.  Be  it  so;  it  is  very  interest- 
ing. The  economist  scans  balance  sheets  and  market 
reports,  follows  the  zig-zags  of  diagrams,  deciphers 
ledgers  and  statistics,  shakes  the  dust  out  of  charters 
and  deeds,  and  teaches  us  how  the  wealth  of  a  country 
is  developed  by  exchange,  how  the  value  of  a  com- 
modity is  fixed  by  its  utility,  and  how  a  monetary 
crisis  is  brought  about.  Very  well ;  that  is  all  true, 
but  is  that  all  ?     Why,  we  may  say  to  the  chemist,  do 

we  on  this  winter's  evening  find  the  solitude  less  dull 

i46 


I.  NATURE  147 

and  the  cold  less  rigorous  because  a  bunch  of  roses  is 
on  the  chimneypiece  ?  They  neither  speak  nor  warm 
us.  .  .  .  Why,  we  may  say  to  the  economist,  has  this 
excrescence  of  a  shell  with  no  useful  purpose  a  market 
value  much  greater  than  a  sack  of  corn  which  would 
sustain  a  man  for  a  given  time  ?  .  .  .  And  why,  we 
should  say  to  the  man  of  science,  are  we  saddened  by 
the  sound  of  a  minor  scale,  and  why  are  we  cheered 
by  a  ray  of  sun  ?  Why  does  not  this  fire  which  burns 
on  the  hearth  gladden  us  like  the  sun  which  blazes 
in  at  the  window  ?  Nay  more,  why  in  this  artificial 
fireplace,  where  a  regulated  jet  of  gas  sets  light  to 
stationary  blocks  of  asbestos,  is  there  heat  for  the 
thermometer  and  so  little  warmth  for  the  heart  ? 

Let  us  leave  this  city  where  the  sky  is  hidden  by 
smoke  and  the  earth  is  paved  with  wood,  where  fire 
burns  only  supplied  by  gasometers  and  water  is  such 
that  one  dares  not  drink  it,  and  let  us  go  forth 
to  contemplate  Nature  where  she  yet  abides  undis- 
figured  by  man.  Why  should  the  same  sky  discour- 
age us  when  it  is  grey  and  kindle  hope  when  it  is 
blue  ?  Here  among  the  fields  look  at  this  green,  even 
turf  trimmed  as  with  a  line,  and  then  turn  to  that 
undulating  ground  full  of  wild  herbs  subtly  interlaced. 
We  find  the  same  chemical  composition,  the  same 
power  of  production,  the  same  value.  The  two  fields 
are  exactly  similar  in  the  eyes  of  the  agriculturist, 
the  economist,  the  philosopher,  and  the  tax-gatherer. 
Yet  the  one  with  its  monotonous  lines  would  not 
stay  our  steps  or  our  cares.     The  other  would  attract 


148    HIS  .ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

us,  would  distract  us,  perhaps  would  charm  us,  and 
thanks  to  its  thousand  fantastic  aspects  and  outlines 
we  might  for  an  instant  forget  the  world  and  return 
home  soothed,  calmer,  and  morally  refreshed.  Why  ? 
And  why  should  Nature  be  full  of  colour  as  a 
picture  instead  of  grey  like  an  engraving  ?  Why  does 
she  paint  with  most  brilliant  colours  the  most  useless 
as  well  as  the  most  inoffensive  creatures  ?  Assuredly 
there  are  poisonous  toadstools  which  might  have 
been  washed  in  colour  by  Delacroix,  and  carrion-flies 
which  might  have  been  touched  by  the  brush  of  Fra 
Angelico;  but  are  not  the  gentlest  birds  usually  the 
most  beautiful  ?  Bend  over  these  rocks  broken  in 
their  fall.  "Pure  earths  are  white  when  in  powder; 
and  the  same  earths  which  are  the  constituents  of  clay 
and  sand,  form,  when  crystallised,  the  emerald,  ruby, 
sapphire,  amethyst  and  opal.  .  .  .  It  is  a  universal  law 
that  according  to  the  purity  of  any  substance,  and 
according  to  the  energy  of  its  crystallisation,  is  its 
beauty  of  brightness.  .  .  .  The  Spirit  in  the  plant  .  .  . 
is  of  course  strongest  at  the  moment  of  its  flowering. 
.  .  .  And  where  this  Life  is  at  its  full  power,  its  form 
becomes  invested  with  aspects  that  are  chiefly  de- 
lightful to  our  own  human  passions;  namely,  first, 
with  the  loveliest  outlines  of  shape ;  and  secondly, 
with  the  most  brilliant  phases  of  the  primary  colours, 
blue,  yellow,  and  red  or  white,  the  unison  of  all ;  and, 
to  make  it  all  more  strange,  this  time  of  peculiar  and 
perfect  glory  is  associated  with  relations  of  the  plants 
or  blossoms  to  each  other,  correspondent  to  the  joy 


I.   NATURE  149 

of  love  in  human  creatures."  .  .  .  Why  ?  Go  higher 
up  in  the  scale  of  life.  What  is  this  twisted  brilliant 
object  which  slides  on  the  pathway — "a  rivulet  of 
smooth  silver  which  slips  between  the  grass,"  a  little 
"  ridged  "  form  "  which  rows  on  the  earth  with  every 
scale  for  an  oar.  A  wave,  but  without  wind !  a 
current,  but  with  no  fall !  Why  that  horror  ?  There 
is  more  poison  in  an  ill-kept  drain, — in  a  pool  of  dish- 
washings  at  a  cottage-door,  than  in  the  deadliest  asp 
of  Nile."  Or  perhaps  there  is  hidden  in  our  heart 
some  obscure  relation  between  the  form  of  the  serpent 
and  the  idea  of  evil  ?  .  .  .  Why  on  the  contrary  is 
there  pleasure  in  the  "rapid  and  radiant  passage  of 
purpled  wings  "  of  no  utility  to  man,  while  the  grey, 
dull  flesh  of  fowls  is  far  more  serviceable  to  him  ? 
Why  this  thrill  of  joy  quick  and  instinctive  in  the 
free  supple  movement  of  a  horse's  limbs.  The  motor- 
car has  none  and  yet  carries  us  faster  whither  we 
would  go.  .  .  . 

It  may  be  objected  that  these  things  do  not  attract 
attention  or  give  pleasure  equally  to  all  creatures. 
This  is  true,  and  is  yet  another  mystery  in  them  and 
in  ourselves.  Can  it  be  that  these  impressions  and 
their  consequences  on  the  actions  of  creatures  are  not 
truly  existent  ?  Is  it  not  rather  that  having  more  or 
less  existence  they  constitute  between  these  beings  a 
hierarchy,  or  if  need  be  a  classification  not  yet  deter- 
mined ?  Whence  comes  it  that  one  man  pauses  and 
is  impressed  by  the  blue  mountains  on  the  horizon 
standing  like  waves  made  stationary  by  the  wand  of 


150    HIS  ^ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

a  magician,  and  that  another  creature  proceeds  on  his 
way  indifferent  ?  Should  not  all  who  have  eyes  see 
alike  ?  Are  there  differences  between  species  other 
than  those  of  which  the  biologists  are  aware  ?  "  How 
many  manner  of  eyes  are  there  ?  You  physical-science 
students  should  be  able  to  tell  us  painters  that." 
"  We  see,  as  we  try  to  draw  the  endlessly-grotesque 
creatures  about  us,  what  infinite  variety  of  instruments 
they  have ;  but  you  know,  far  better  than  we  do,  how 
those  instruments  are  constructed  and  directed.  You 
know  how  some  play  in  their  sockets  with  independent 
revolution, — project  into  near-sightedness  on  pyramids 
of  bone, — are  brandished  at  the  points  of  horns, — 
studded  over  backs  and  shoulders, — thrust  at  the  ends 
of  antennae  to  pioneer  for  the  head,  or  pinched  up  into 
tubercles  at  the  corners  of  the  lips.  But  how  do  the 
creatures  see  out  of  all  these  eyes  ?  "  When  you  look 
at  a  serpent  coming  out  of  his  hiding-place  or  resting 
on  a  branch  like  a  coil  of  rope,  or  flattening  against 
the  glass  of  his  cage  the  round  curves  of  his  clammy 
coils,  have  you  ever  asked  whether  the  serpent  is 
looking  at  you  and  what  he  sees  of  you  ?  "  It  will 
keep  its  eyes  fixed  on  you  for  an  hour  together,  a 
vertical  slit  in  each  admitting  such  image  of  you  as  is 
possible  to  the  rattlesnake  retina,  and  to  the  rattle- 
snake mind.  How  much  of  a  man  can  a  snake  see  ? 
What  sort  of  image  of  him  is  received  through  that 
deadly  vertical  cleft  in  the  iris ; — through  the  glazed 
blue  of  the  ghastly  lens  ?  ...  A  cat  may  look  at  a 
king ; — yes ;  but  can  it  see  a  king  when  it  looks  at 


I.   NATURE  151 

him  ?  When  a  cat  caresses  you,  it  never  looks  at 
you.  Its  heart  seems  to  be  in  its  back  and  paws, 
not  its  eyes."  The  fawn,  the  horse,  appear  more 
susceptible  to  differences  of  aspect,  the  dog  yet  more, 
and  man  more  than  all  beasts  together.  Man  looks 
and  considers ;  man  enjoys  and  suffers  through  his 
sight ;  he  is  enraptured  by  things  which  have  no 
function  in  his  life :  —  before  reflections  which  he 
cannot  grasp,  before  rocks  which  he  cannot  cultivate, 
before  the  colours  of  that  ether  whither  he  cannot 
ascend.     Why  ? 

And  why  did  the  greatest  of  men — the  saints  whose 
histories  are  shown  on  banners  or  in  the  glories  of  old 
gilded  panels — love  to  fortify  their  souls  by  the  sight 
of  mountains,  wings,  water,  and  flowers,  "  whenever 
they  had  any  task  or  trial  laid  upon  them  needing 
more  than  their  usual  strength  of  spirit  ? "  And 
finally,  why  are  these  brilliant  and  disinterested  im- 
pressions more  acute  and  more  profound  in  the  same 
man  when  his  heart  is  free  from  low  passion  or  mean 
envy  ?  Why  is  the  joy  of  colour  deeper  in  his  soul 
when  his  constitution  is  sound,  and  in  his  spirit  when 
it  is  calm,  and  in  his  senses  when  they  are  at  rest  ? 
Why  in  this  case  does  the  joy  of  colour  and  its  recol- 
lection stay  by  him  for  the  rest  of  his  life  on  earth  ? 
"  Let  the  eye  but  rest  on  a  rough  piece  of  branch  of 
curious  form  during  a  conversation  with  a  friend,  rest, 
however,  unconsciously,  and  though  the  conversation 
be  forgotten,  though  every  circumstance  connected 
with  it  be  as  utterly  lost  to  the  memory  as  though 


H 


r 


152    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

it  had  not  been,  yet  the  eye  will,  through  the  whole 
life  after,  take  a  certain  pleasure  in  such  boughs 
which  it  had  not  before,  a  pleasure  so  slight,  a  trace  of 
feeling  so  delicate  as  to  leave  us  utterly  unconscious 
of  its  peculiar  power,  but  undestroyable  by  any  rea- 
soning, a  part  thenceforward  of  our  constitution." 
Why?  Many  things  indeed  are  explained  in  our 
schools,  but  who  can  explain  the  part  that  form  and 
colour  play  in  our  lives  ?  The  properties  of  bodies 
are  analysed, — but  has  any  one  ever  sought  to  under- 
stand that  quality  of  qualities  which  mingles  and 
combines  all  things  in  this  world  —  the  power  of 
attraction  and  sympathy  ?  The  arguments  of  our 
physiologists  and  psychologists  are  ingenious  enough, 
but  would  they  not  apply  equally  well  to  all  our  sur- 
roundings, irrespective  of  curve  of  line  or  charm  of 
colour  ?  Would  the  teaching  of  philosophers  who 
describe  this  world  in  terms  so  abstruse,  so  grey,  and 
so  cold,  ever  lead  us  to  imagine  it  to  be  such  shimmer 
of  foliage,  such  a  flood  of  sunshine,  such  pulsation  of 
life,  such  a  tremor  of  eyelids  and  fire  of  glances,  as 
indeed  constitute  all  its  value  ?  Philosophers  construct 
systems  which  explain  everything  in  the  world  except 
its  charm.  They  analyse  all  the  secret  forces  of  the 
soul  except  its  power  of  admiration.  They  dissolve 
all  our  relations  with  Nature,  so-called  inanimate, 
except  its  power  of  love.  .  .  . 

All  these  things,  our  professor  may  reply,  come  into 
the  province  of  diverse  sciences,  which  to  some  extent 
take    note    of  them,   or    perhaps    they  come  into    no 


I.   NATURE  153 

province  at  all,  because  being  only  variable  impressions 
in  each  individual  they  are  not  capable  of  scientific 
analysis,  and  can  in  every  case  be  resolved  into  mere 
appearances  or  effects  of  perception.  Effects  of  per- 
ception ?  Granted.  But  is  it  likely  that  because  they 
are  so  labelled  they  will  lose  their  power  over  man 
and  his  existence  ?  Do  you  doubt  that  to  perception, 
that  is,  the  perception  of  glory  and  the  perception  of 
love,  we  owe  most  of  our  resolutions  and  most  of  our 
weaknesses — and  in  consequence,  most  of  our  misery 
and  most  of  our  happiness  ?  Is  it  not  to  the  present- 
ment of  ancient  heroism  that  we  owe  our  true  modern 
heroes ;  and  from  the  illusion  of  the  oasis,  the  mirage 
itself,  that  we  derive  sufficient  consolation  to  pursue 
our  path  towards  the  reality  ?  Are  legends  true  ? 
and  assuming  the  contrary,  have  they  exercised  less 
influence  than  history  on  the  facts  of  life  ?  Waiving 
all  proof  of  religion,  is  it  not  to  the  phantoms  of  the 
sky  that  we  owe  most  of  the  things  which  have  trans- 
formed the  earth  ?  Can  we  say  the  radiance  of  the 
sun  is  not  needful  to  our  lives  so  long  as  it  gives  us 
light,  or  the  harmony  of  the  flowers,  so  long  as  they 
give  us  healing  ?  Should  we  not  rather  say  that  the 
relation  of  these  things  to  man,  of  these  ideas  to  our 
intelligence,  of  these  phenomena  to  our  acts  and  senti- 
ments, that  all  these  mighty  yet  imperceptible  fibres, 

"  These  mysterious  fibres  by  which  our  hearts  are  bound," 

are  too  subtle  or  too  personal  to  be  disentangled 
without  damage  by  the  rude  scalpel  of  science  as  at 


i  54    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

present  organised,  and  organised  to  meet  quite  other 
needs. 

Any  science  of  nature  to  accomplish  this  end  must 
give  heed  not  only  to  her  chemical  or  physical  com- 
position, her  truth,  her  utility,  her  riches,  her  evolu- 
tion, even  her  fecundity,  but  to  that  also  which  we 
worship  in  life  and  despise  in  argument,  which  is 
graven  in  facts  and  proscribed  by  systems,  which  we 
seek  in  silence  and  dream  of  with  awe — the  Beauti- 
ful. The  only  psychology  capable  of  explaining  the 
phenomena  just  described  and  a  thousand  others  fore- 
seen or  divined,  is  one  which  would  treat  the  qualities 
of  form  and  colour  as  part  of  the  primary  and  domi- 
nant qualities  of  natural  objects  exercising  their  action 
not  only  on  the  sense  of  touch  but  on  that  nobler 
sense  of  sight,  and  not  so  much  on  our  sentiment 
of  desire  or  possession  as  on  the  most  unselfish  of 
sentiments,  that  of  admiration.  The  only  complete 
philosophy  would  be  one  which  would  not  only  ask 
the  cause  of  fojres  but  also  of  forms.  It  should 
ascertain  not  only  the  laws  but  also  and  above  all 
the  joys  of  creation,  and  should  classify  human  beings 
not  alone  according  to  their  aspects  and  mechanical 
functions — as  engines  are  classed  in  an  exhibition  of 
machinery — but  chiefly  according  to  their  artistic  at- 
tributes and  their  evidence  or  expression  of  Beauty — 
just  as  pictures  or  statues  are  classified  in  a  Gallery. 

We  shall  be  told  that  this  science  or  this  philosophy 
would  not  be  strictly  speaking  either  a  science  or  a 
philosophy  at  all.     Perhaps  so ;    we  will  not  dispute 


I.   NATURE  155 

about  words.  Between  the  two  methods  of  research, 
there  is  truly  a  profound  difference.  "  Science  deals 
exclusively  with  things  as  they  are  in  themselves; 
and  art  exclusively  with  things  as  they  affect  the 
human  senses  and  human  soul.  "  Her  work  is  to 
portray  the  appearance  of  things,  and  to  deepen  the 
natural  impressions  which  they  produce  upon  living 
creatures.  The  work  of  science  is  to  substitute 
facts  for  appearances,  and  demonstrations  for  im- 
pressions. Both,  observe,  are  equally  concerned  with 
truth;  the  one  with  truth  of  aspect,  the  other  with 
truth  of  essence.  Art  does  not  represent  things 
falsely,  but  truly  as  they  appear  to  mankind.  "  Science 
studies  the  relations  of  things  to  each  other;  but 
art  studies  only  their  relations  to  man ;  and  it  re- 
quires of  everything  which  is  submitted  to  it  impera- 
tively this,  and  only  this, — what  that  thing  is  to  the  in- 
human eyes  and  human  heart." 

There  is  a  difference  greater  still  between  the 
diverse  faculties  called  into  play  by  these  two  in- 
vestigations. For  although  our  present  inquiry  is 
to  be  scientific,  that  is  to  say  experimental,  in  one 
direction  it  will  be  chiefly  artistic  and  intuitive.  It 
is  the  function  of  the  artist  to  interpret  the  effect  of 
Nature  on  the  eyes  and  on  the  heart,  and  "to  this  end 
clear  vision  is  more  important  than  much  knowledge.  > 
His  faculty  of  perception  penetrates  far  deeper  than  I  y 


156    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

the  instruments  of  the  student.  "The  labour  of  the 
whole  Geological  Society,  for  the  last  fifty  years,  has 
but  now  arrived  at  the  ascertainment  of  those  truths 
respecting  mountain-form  which  Turner  saw  and  ex- 
pressed with  a  few  strokes  of  a  camel's  hair  pencil 
fifty  years  ago,  when  he  was  a  boy.  "The  know- 
ledge of  all  the  laws  of  the  planetary  system,  and  of 
all  the  curves  of  the  motion  of  projectiles,  would 
never  enable  a  man  of  science  to  draw  a  waterfall 
or  a  wave ;  and  all  the  members  of  the  College 
of  Surgeons  helping  each  other  could  not  at  this 
moment  see,  or  represent,  the  natural  movement  of  a 
human  body  in  vigorous  action,  as  a  poor  dyer's  son 
[Tintoret]  did  two  hundred  years  ago."  And  in  order 
to  feel  all  the  power  of  Nature  upon  the  heart  as 
well  as  upon  the  eye,  it  is  needful  not  only  to  see 
her  well  but  also  to  love  her  well.  "We  cannot 
fathom  the  mystery  of  a  single  flower,  nor  is  it 
intended  that  we  should;  but  that  the  pursuit  of 
science  should  constantly  be  stayed  by  the  love  of 
beauty,  and  accuracy  of  knowledge  by  tenderness  of 
emotion." 

What  then  is  this  inward  faculty  which  enables  us 
to  see  and  to  study  man  as  something  more  than  a 
marvellous  automaton,  plants  as  something  more  than 
alembics,  flowers  as  something  more  than  remedies  ? 
And  how  shall  we  designate  it  ?  Clearly  it  is  not  the 
intellect,  for  ideas  of  beauty  are  instinctive,  and  the 
most  we  can  say  for  the  intellect  when  it  deals  with 
them   is  that    it    is   useless.      Any  doubt    as    to    this 


I.   NATURE  157 

may  be  removed  by  reading  M.  Thiers  where  he 
treats  of  art  criticism.  "  If  ever  a  critic  tells  you 
two  colours  do  not  go  together  make  a  note  of  it,  so 
as  to  put  them  as  often  as  possible  side  by  side." 
Should  we  call  it  sensibility  ?  If  we  must  lean  to 
one  or  other  side  it  is  to  this  that  we  should  incline, 
for  sensibility  is  what  is  both  most  powerful  and 
most  noble  in  us.  "  Men  are  for  ever  vulgar,  pre- 
cisely in  proportion  as  they  are  incapable  of  sym- 
pathy —  of  quick  understanding,  —  of  all  that,  in 
deep  insistence  on  the  common,  but  most  accurate 
term,  may  be  called  the  '  tact '  or  '  touch-faculty,'  of 
body  and  soul :  that  tact  which  the  Mimosa  has  in 
trees,  which  the  pure  woman  has  above  all  creatures ; 
— fineness  and  fulness  of  sensation,  beyond  reason ; 
— the  guide  and  sanctifier  of  reason  itself.  Reason 
can  but  determine  what  is  true : — it  is  the  God-given 
passion  of  humanity  which  can  alone  recognise  what 
God  has  made  good." 

But  does  sensation  suffice  ?  All  created  things  have 
sensation.  Even  the  plant  feels — does  it  therefore 
perceive  Beauty  ?  Are  not  the  sensations  of  men  so 
diverse  that  they  seem  to  differ  not  only  in  degree 
but  also  in  kind  ?  Is  the  sense  of  charm  as  we 
watch  a  sunbeam  skim  along  the  distant  waters  of  a 
lake  at  all  akin  to  the  sense  of  pleasure  given  by 
the  savour  of  roast  beef?  This  latter  sensation  is 
much  the  most  useful — but  it  is  precisely  in  the 
former  that  the  relation  between  Nature  and  the  soul 
is   to   be   discerned.      Further,    it   is   these    so-called 


158    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

useless  sensations  which  are  the  most  powerful,  the 
most  exquisite,  and  the  most  indefinitely  enduring. 
"The  pleasures  of  touch  and  taste  are  given  to  us  as 
subservient  to  life,  as  instruments  of  our  preservation 
— compelling  us  to  seek  the  things  necessary  to  our 
being,  and  that,  therefore,  when  this  their  function  is 
fully  performed,  they  ought  to  have  an  end ;  and  can 
only  be  artificially,  and  under  high  penalty  prolonged." 
Although  it  is  very  necessary  to  eat  in  order  to 
live,  it  becomes  destructive  to  live  in  order  to  eat. 
"  But  the  pleasures  of  sight  and  hearing  are  given 
as  gifts.  They  answer  not  any  purposes  of  mere 
existence,  for  the  distinction  of  all  that  is  useful  or 
dangerous  to  us  might  be  made,  and  often  is  made, 
by  the  eye  without  its  receiving  the  slightest  pleasure 
of  sight.  We  might  have  learned  to  distinguish 
fruits  and  grain  from  flowers,  without  having  any 
superior  pleasure  in  the  aspect  of  the  latter.  And 
the  ear  might  have  learned  to  distinguish  the  sounds 
that  communicate  ideas,  or  to  recognise  intimations 
of  elemental  danger  without  perceiving  either  music  in 
the  voice,  or  majesty  in  the  thunder.  And  as  these 
pleasures  have  no  function  to  perform,  so  there  is 
no  limit  to  their  continuance  in  the  accomplishment 
of  their  end,  for  they  are  an  end  in  themselves,  and 
so  may  be  perpetual  with  all  of  us — being  in  no  way 
destructive,  but  rather  increasing  in  cxquisiteness 
by  repetition.  Herein  then  we  find  very  sufficient 
ground  for  the  higher  estimation  of  these  delights, 
first   in    their  being   eternal    and   inexhaustible,    and 


I.    NATURE  159 

secondly,  in  their  being  evidently  no  means  or  in- 
strument of  life,  but  an  object  of  life.  Now  in 
whatever  is  an  object  of  life,  in  whatever  may  be 
infinitely  and  for  itself  desired,  we  may  be  sure 
there  is  something  of  divine." 

The  faculty  therefore  which  apprehends  the  beautiful 
is  not  "a  mere  operation  of  sense."  Something  else 
is  interwoven  to  preserve  it  from  the  material  and  to 
prolong  the  passing  element.  Something  is  mingled 
which  combines  the  serene  peace  of  contemplation  and 
the  formless  force  of  the  senses.  If  we  need  to  be 
convinced  of  this  let  us  recall  the  feelings  which 
assert  themselves  in  the  presence  of  the  horizon  we 
love  best,  at  the  magical  moments  of  special  inspira- 
tion. Let  us  recall  what  every  one  must  have  ex- 
perienced as  he  passed  in  a  carriage  some  lovely 
spot,  where  he  felt  "  I  must  come  back,  I  must  pass 
my  life  here,"  yet  he  has  never  returned.  It  is 
primarily  a  sensuous  pleasure,  but  it  is  accompanied 
with  joy,  with  love  for  the  object,  with  a  kind  of 
veneration  for  its  unknown  cause,  "with  a  percep- 
tion of  kindness  in  a  superior  intelligence,"  with 
gratitude  towards  Beauty  for  itself  and  for  its  gift  to 
us  who  alone  have  eyes  to  perceive  it — perchance  also 
the  same  feeling  as  in  some  pictures  of  the  early 
masters  where  the  Virgin  and  flowers  are  contemplated 
by  knights  and  donors  here  below,  while  from  the 
clouds  they  are  watched  over  by  the  Eternal  Father 
and  His  angels.,.  .  .  "No  idea  can  be  at  all  con- 
sidered as  in  any  way  an  idea  of  beauty,  until  it  be 


160    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

made  up  of  these  emotions,  any  more  than  we  can  be 
said  to  have  an  idea  of  a  letter  of  which  we  perceive 
the  perfume  and  the  fair  writing,  without  understand- 
ing the  contents  of  it,  or  intent  of  it ;  and  as  these 
emotions  are  in  no  way  resultant  from,  nor  obtainable 
by,  any  operation  of  the  intellect,  it  is  evident  that  the 
sensation  of  beauty  is  not  sensual  on  the  one  hand, 
nor  is  it  intellectual  on  the  other,  but  is  dependent  on 
a  pure  right  and  open  state  of  the  heart,  both  for  its 
truth  and  for  its  intensity,  insomuch  that  even  the 
right  after-action  of  the  intellect  upon  facts  of  beauty 
so  apprehended,  is  dependent  on  the  acuteness  of  the 
heart  feeling  about  them."  The  heart  is  the  source 
of  high  and  serene  emotion  in  the  presence  of  the 
large  expanse  of  Nature.  And  the  response  is  a 
faculty  of  the  heart — a  sentiment. 

This  is  the  "aesthetical  sentiment,"  or  as  Ruskin 
terms  it  the  "  theoretic  faculty."  It  is  this  sentiment 
which  thrills  us  in  the  most  exquisite  hours  of  life, 
those  hours  alone  worthy  of  being  lived.  It  is  this 
sentiment  which  establishes  that  mysterious  harmony 
between  Nature  and  man,  which  we  ask  science  in 
vain  to  analyse.  We  must  not  confound  it  with  any 
other  faculty  either  higher  or  lower.  We  must  hold 
fast  to  its  autonomy.  We  shall  have  against  us  the 
pure  Hedonists  and  the  pure  Rationalists.  We  shall 
have  to  fight  against  those  who  see  in  this  sentiment 
a  physiological  instinct,  as  well  as  against  those  who 
treat  it  as  a  process  of  reason.  It  is  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other.     This  aesthetical  sentiment  ("  theoretic 


I.   NATURE  161 

faculty  ")  is  not  the  far-off  echo  of  a  physical  instinct ; 
it  is  an  intuition  differing  from  all  other  instinct,  and 
physiology  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  "A  girl  is 
praised  because  she  is  like  a  rose,  not  a  rose  because 
it  is  like  a  girl."  Neither  is  it  love  in  the  higher  sense 
of  sacrifice  of  self;  such  love  is  self-surrender,  and  in 
the  pleasure  we  receive  from  plants  and  water  and 
light,  we  take  everything  and  we  surrender  nothing. 
Still  less  is  it  the  product  of  reasoning  :  the  impression 
disappears  directly  we  begin  to  reason.  For  example  : 
"  All  these  sensations  of  beauty  in  the  plant  arise 
from  our  unselfish  sympathy  with  its  happiness,  and 
not  from  any  view  of  the  qualities  in  it  which  may 
bring  good  to  us,  nor  even  from  our  acknowledgment 
in  it  of  any  moral  condition  beyond  that  of  mere 
felicity;  .  .  .  the  moment  we  begin  to  look  upon  any 
creature  as  subordinate  to  some  purpose  out  of  itself, 
some  of  the  sense  of  organic  beauty  is  lost.  Thus, 
when  we  are  told  that  the  leaves  of  a  plant  are  occu- 
pied in  decomposing  carbonic  acid,  and  preparing  oxy- 
gen for  us,  we  begin  to  look  upon  it  with  some  such 
indifference  as  upon  a  gasometer.  It  has  become  a 
machine ;  some  of  our  sense  of  its  happiness  is  gone." 
— "  It  is  true  that  reflection  will  show  us  that  the  plant 
is  not  living  for  itself  alone,  that  its  life  is  one  01 
benefaction,  that  it  gives  as  well  as  receives,  but  no 
sense  of  this  whatsoever  mingles  with  our  perception 
of  physical  beauty  in  its  forms.  These  forms  appear 
to  be  necessary  to  its  health  ;  the  symmetry  of  its 
leaflets,  the  vivid  green  of  its  shoots,  are  looked  upon 

L 


162    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

by  us  as  signs  of  the  plant's  own  happiness  and 
perfection ;  they  are  useless  to  us,  except  as  they  give 
us  pleasure  in  our  sympathising  with  that  of  the 
plant." — "  Both  the  Book  of  Job  and  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  give  precisely  the  view  of  nature  which  is 
taken  by  the  uninvestigating  affection  of  a  humble, 
but  powerful  mind.  There  is  no  dissection  of  muscles 
or  counting  of  elements,  but  the  boldest  and  broadest 
glance  at  the  apparent  facts,  and  the  most  magnificent 
metaphor  in  expressing  them.  '  His  eyes  are  like 
the  eyelids  of  the  morning.  In  his  neck  remaineth 
strength,  and  sorrow  is  turned  into  joy  before  him.' 
And  in  the  often  repeated,  never  obeyed,  command, 
'  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,'  observe  there  is  pre- 
cisely the  delicate  attribution  of  life  which  we  have 
seen  to  be  the  characteristic  of  the  modern  view 
of  landscape.  .  .  .  There  is  no  science,  or  hint  of 
science ;  no  counting  of  petals,  nor  display  of  provi- 
sions for  sustenance :  nothing  but  the  expression  of 
sympathy,  at  once  the  most  childish,  and  the  most  pro- 
found." It  is  the  "  aesthetical  sentiment "  or  "  theoretic 
faculty." * 

1  In  these  pages  and  those  which  follow  an  effort  has  been  made  to 
give  a  faithful  rendering  not  of  the  words  of  Ruskin  but  of  his  thought. 
It  has  been  sometimes  necessary  to  transpose  the  words  so  as  to  give 
the  idea  more  accurately.  For  instance,  here  the  phrase  "  aesthetic 
sentiment "  has  been  used  in  every  case  where  Ruskin  would  use  the 
phrase  "  theoretic  faculty."  The  word  "aesthetic"  has  been  proscribed 
by  Ruskin  in  English  as  meaning  something  other  than  this  "energy 
of  contemplation  "  which  he  is  considering.  But  in  French  the  word 
"  aesthetic  "  has  quite  the  same  sense  that  Ruskin  gives  to  "  theoretic." 
It  is  the  sense  that  has  been  given  to  it  by  all  oestheticists,  especially 


I.   NATURE  163 

It  is  this  faculty  that  apprehends  better  than 
Reason  or  the  Senses,  "  the  claim  of  all  lower  nature 
on  the  hearts  of  men ;  of  the  rock,  and  wave,  and 
herb  as  a  part  of  their  necessary  spirit  life."  We 
have  found  the  instrument  of  our  study  as  well  as 
our  goal,  and  its  reward  as  well  as  its  instrument. 
Enthusiasm  alone  can  analyse  enthusiasm.  Admira- 
tion alone  can  deal  with  the  phenomena  of  admiration. 
The  accusation  of  Schwarmerei%  Enthusiasm,  will  not 
deter  us,  and  we  leave  the  scoffers  to  their  barren 
task.  When  with  their  cold  critical  minds  they 
attempt  to  analyse  impressions  of  beauty,  they  might 
as  well  gravely  set  about  lowering  the  temperature  of 
those  objects  upon  which  they  propose  to  study  the 
action  of  heat.  Far  from  enlightening  and  sharpening 
the  faculty  of  the  aestheticist,  the  critical  spirit  falsifies 
it,  experience  blunts  it,  science  destroys  it.  "  If  it 
were  possible  for  us  to  recollect  all  the  unaccountable 
and  happy  instincts  of  the  careless  time,  and  to  reason 
upon    them    with    the    maturer    judgment,    we    might 

M.  Charles  Leveque  in  his  Science  du  Beau.  And  when  Topffer 
speaks  in  his  Menus  I'ropos  of  the  "  aesthetic  faculty,"  or  when  more 
recently  M.  Cherbuliez  in  his  book  L'Art  et  la  Nature  analyses 
the  plaisir  esthetique,  they  express  the  same  idea  in  the  same  manner 
as  Ruskin,  though  they  use  another  phrase. 

Translator 's  note. — To  meet  the  difficulty  of  translating  the  phrase 
sentiment  esthetique,  I  shall  in  future  use  Mr.  Ruskin's  own  words, 
"  theoretic  faculty,"  although  perhaps  the  difference  might  be  rendered 
by  the  phrase  "cesthetical  sentiment"  which  I  have  used  hitherto. 
Also,  as  Mr.  Ruskin  proscribes  the  use  of  the  words  aesthetic  and 
aesthete,  I  have  used  asthctical  and  icstheticist  to  render  the  French 
esl/u'tique  and  esthe'ticien. 


1 64    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

arrive  at  more  rapid  and  right  results  than  either  the 
philosophy  or  the  sophisticated  practice  of  art  have 
yet  attained."  Only  those  who  have  preserved  the 
purity  of  their  impressions  can  fathom  the  purity  of 
crystalline  colours.  The  world  of  beauty  is  like  the 
beryl  in  Rossetti's  ballad  : 

"  None  sees  here  but  the  pure  alone," 

and,  in  truth,  "  ye  must  be  as  little  children  or  ye  will 
not  enter  into  the  kingdom  "  of  art. 

Because  it  belongs  to  the  simple-minded  and  does 
not  depend  upon  active  reason,  this  faculty  is  not  to 
be  ignored,  still  less  is  it  to  be  disdained.  For  this 
were  to  despise  the  most  precious  of  the  gifts  dis- 
tributed by  those  good  fairies  who  stood  by  the  cradle 
of  humanity.  The  theoretic  or  aesthetical  faculty 
belongs  to  man  alone.  Whether  an  animal  is  affected 
by  the  Utility  of  things,  we  cannot  assert  or  deny,  but 
before  Beauty  man  alone  is  moved  and  trembles.  "  So 
much  as  there  is  in  you  of  ox  or  swine  perceives  no 
beauty  and  creates  none.  What  is  human  in  you,  in 
exact  proportion  to  the  perfectness  of  its  humanity, 
can  create  it  and  receive."  That  the  animal  sees  is 
indisputable,  and  up  to  a  certain  point  he  reasons : 
but  man  contemplates.  Paul  Potter's  Vache  qui  se 
mire  looks  at  her  own  reflection  :  but  man  marvels 
at  the  likeness  of  God.  "  It  is  the  human  faculty, 
entirely  human,  which  makes  us  love  rocks  not  for 
ourselves  but  for  themselves,"  —  for  their  outline 
against  the  blue  sky.     We  need  look  no  further  for' 


I.   NATURE  165 

the  fundamental  difference  between  man  and  all  that 
is  said  to  resemble  him.  For  instance :  Here  is  a 
beautiful  and  slender  plant  with  infinitely  changing 
curves  and  harmoniously  assorted  tints :  some  crea- 
ture on  all  fours  rushes  towards  it,  seizes  it,  and  de- 
vours it.  What  was  that  creature  ?  I  do  not  know. 
It  was  a  sudden  impulse.  But  it  tore  up  the  plant 
in  order  to  hide  it  and  find  it  again.  What  creature 
was  that  ?  I  do  not  know.  There  are  many  animals 
that  hide  their  prey  or  their  food.  It  is  an  act  which 
borders  on  the  reasoning  power. — But  yet  another 
creature  paused  before  the  plant  for  a  long  time  to 
admire  it.  What  was  this  creature  ?  I  know  that 
well :  it  was  a  man.     The  theoretic  faculty  was  there. 

Whereas  this  faculty  is  distinctive  of  the  nature  of 
man,  nothing  human  should  escape  from  its  grasp. 
Every  true  philosopher  furnished  with  this  instrument 
of  study  must  take  into  consideration  the  part  which 
nature  and  beauty  play  in  every  action  or  idea  brought 
to  his  notice.  He  must  seek  in  the  soul  for  the  lines 
of  the  landscapes  upon  which  the  eye  gazed.  He 
must  seek  in  the  heart  for  the  resolves  left  there  by 
the  "grandeur  or  expression  of  the  hills."  While 
searching  out  final  causes  in  the  presence  of  "  frown- 
ing rocks,"  he  will  not  say  in  the  words  of  a  past 
thinker,  wondering  in  himself  for  whom  their  creator 
could  have  made  them,  "  They  are  inhabited  by  the 
beasts  " ;  but  he  will  study  whether  they  "  seem  to 
have  been  built  for  the  human  race  as  at  once  their 
schools  and  cathedrals,  full  of  treasures  of  illuminated 


1 66    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

manuscript  for  the  scholar,  kindly  in  simple  lessons 
to  the  worker,  quiet  in  pale  cloisters  for  the  thinker, 
glorious  in  holiness  for  the  worshipper."  He  will  in- 
quire whether  "the  occult  influence  of  mountains  has 
been  both  constant  and  essential  to  the  progress  of 
the  race,"  and  whether  he  can  "justly  refuse  to  moun- 
tain scenery  some  share  in  giving  the  Greeks  and  the 
Italians  their  intellectual  lead  among  the  nations  of 
Europe."  He  must  consider  for  example  that  "  there 
is  not  a  single  spot  of  land  in  either  of  these  countries 
from  which  mountains  are  not  discernible ;  almost 
always  they  form  the  principal  feature  of  the  scenery. 
The  mountain  outlines  seen  from  Sparta,  Corinth, 
Athens,  Rome,  Florence,  Pisa,  Verona,  are  of  con- 
summate beauty;  and  whatever  dislike  or  contempt 
may  be  traceable  in  the  mind  of  the  Greeks  for 
mountain  raggedness,  their  placing  the  shrine  of 
Apollo  under  the  cliffs  of  Delphi,  and  his  throne  upon 
Parnassus,  was  a  testimony  to  all  succeeding  time 
that  they  themselves  attributed  the  best  part  of  their 
intellectual  inspiration  to  the  power  of  the  hills." 

Perhaps  too  the  source  of  many  great  ideas  which 
govern  the  world  might  be  traced  to  the  contem- 
plation of  certain  familiar  horizons  :  for  instance  the 
source  of  patriotism.  The  country  is  in  fact  the 
beloved  face  of  this  mother — Trjv  fir)Tpi,8a — which  else 
would  be  represented  by  a  cold  abstraction  only,  or 
by  a  heavy  female  statue  like  those  in  the  Place  de 
la  Concorde.  We  do  not  associate  our  country  with 
an  assembly  of  bald  and  black  men,  gesticulating  in 


I.   NATURE  167 

the  light  of  parliamentary  gas,  or  writing  within  the 
precincts  of  municipal  offices :  no,  but  rather  it  is 
the  fringe  of  mountains,  the  flowing  water  of  rivers, 
the  blue  curves  of  limpid  bays,  the  undulating  valleys 
scored,  like  engraved  plates,  with  fields  and  furrows, 
the  villages  scattered  by  the  roadside,  the  smoke  of 
cities  rising  in  the  azure  sky  of  evening.  .  .  .  And 
the  more  beautiful  the  vision  so  much  the  greater  will 
be  the  love  its  image  will  inspire.  The  Scot  for 
example  adores  his  country.  For  "  it  is  the  peculiar 
character  of  Scottish  as  distinct  from  all  other  scenery 
on  a  small  scale  in  North  Europe,  to  have  these  dis- 
tinctively '  mindable '  features.  One  range  of  coteaux 
by  a  French  river  is  exactly  like  another;  one  turn 
of  glen  in  the  Black  Forest  is  only  the  last  turn 
returned ;  one  sweep  of  Jura  pasture  and  crag,  the 
mere  echo  of  the  fields  and  crags  of  ten  miles  away. 
But  in  the  whole  course  of  Tweed,  Teviot,  Gala,  Tay, 
Forth,  and  Clyde,  there  is  perhaps  scarcely  a  bend  of 
ravine,  or  nook  of  valley,  which  would  not  be  recog- 
nisable by  its  inhabitants  from  any  other.  And  there 
is  no  other  country  in  which  the  roots  of  memory  are 
so  entwined  with  the  beauty  of  nature,  instead  of  the 
pride  of  men." 

Hence  it  follows  that  this  Beauty  ought  to  be  the 
chief  preoccupation  of  the  patriot,  inasmuch  as  she 
has  been  his  chief  instructress.  For  it  boots  little 
what  we  do  to  perpetuate  the  idea  of  our  country 
if  we  do  not  also  preserve  her  beloved  face  with  solici- 
tude.   It  is  not  by  scattering  statues  broadcast  that  we 


1 68    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

shall  reap  a  harvest  of  great  men,  but  by  respecting 
the  unhewn  stones  throughout  the  land.  "A  nation 
is  only  worthy  of  the  soil  and  the  scenes  that  it  has 
inherited,  when,  by  all  its  acts  and  arts,  it  is  making 
them  more  lovely  for  its  children." 


§  3 

Finally,  when  the  effects  of  Nature  and  Beauty 
on  the  human  soul  have  been  fully  studied,  and  we 
enter  upon  a  survey  of  the  causes  of  Nature  and 
Beauty,  the  "theoretic  faculty"  is  again  called  upon 
to  intervene.  Of  the  great  problems  belonging  to 
the  soul  nothing  should  be  decided  without  reference 
to  that  science  whose  domain  is  a  part  of  the  soul, 
nor  until  it  is  measured  and  gauged  by  this  superior 
instinct.  Ruskin  teaches  us  that  to  propound  any 
theory  of  the  law,  origin,  and  destiny  of  the  universe 
is  useless  if,  while  satisfying  our  reason,  it  jars  with 
our  feeling ;  if  all  the  enthusiasm  of  our  nature  pro- 
tests against  its  conclusions.  Whenever  the  theory 
of  "  Progress  by  Evolution  "  is  advanced,  we  should 
seek  the  presence  of  the  Theseus  of  the  Parthenon  to 
explain  why  that  glorious  and  immortal  relic  bears 
witness  to  what  Taine  once  termed  "a.  more  complete 
humanity  than  our  own."  And  likewise  in  the  British 
Museum  in  front  of  an  "  Etruscan  Demeter  riding  on 
a  car,  whose  wheels  are  of  wild  roses,"  we  have  to 
learn   wherein  —  setting  aside  their  perfume  —  these 


I.  NATURE  169 

roses  differ  from  those  growing  wild  on  the  hillside 
at  Brantwood.  Trifling  problems  indeed.  Has  a 
student  leisure  to  look  up  to  the  eyes  of  statues  or 
to  lower  his  own  to  the  roses  ?  No !  but  those  who 
have  the  leisure  should  be  satisfied  with  this  sort  of 
curiosity.  "To  a  painter  the  essential  character  of 
anything  is  the  form  of  it;  and  the  philosophers 
cannot  touch  that.  They  come  and  tell  you,  for  in- 
stance, that  there  is  as  much  heat,  or  motion,  or 
calorific  energy,  (or  whatever  else  they  like  to  call  it) 
in  a  tea-kettle  as  in  a  Gier-eagle.  Very  good;  that 
is  so;  and  it  is  very  interesting.  It  requires  just  as 
much  heat  as  will  boil  the  kettle,  to  take  the  Gier- 
eagle  up  to  his  nest;  and  as  much  more  to  bring 
him  down  again  on  a  hare  or  a  partridge.  But  we 
painters,  acknowledging  the  equality  and  similarity 
of  the  kettle  and  the  bird  in  all  scientific  respects 
attach,  for  our  part,  our  principal  interest  in  the 
difference  in  their  forms.  For  us,  the  primarily  cog- 
nisable facts,  in  the  two  things,  are,  that  the  kettle 
has  a  spout,  and  the  eagle  a  beak ;  the  one  a  lid  on 
its  back,  the  other  a  pair  of  wings." 

Further,  "  when  we  examine  these  wings  and  find 
in  all  birds  such  divers  types  of  beauty,"  or  when  "  we 
study  the  varied  colours  which  correspond  to  our 
innermost  sensations  of  joy  or  melancholy,  awaking 
them  at  the  sight  of  a  passing  redbreast,  or  again 
lulling  them  to  rest,"  let  us  beware  of  explanations, 
which  account  for  everything  except  that  beauty, 
and    thereby   destroy   the   very    charm   we    desire  to 


i;o    HIS  AESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

preserve.  Darwin  was  a  great  man,  and  we  owe 
him  many  true  ideas  concerning  what  he  saw,  but 
did  he  see  everything  ?  "  We  might  even  suffi- 
ciently represent  the  general  manner  of  conclusion  in 
the  Darwinian  system  by  the  statement  that  if  you 
fasten  a  hairbrush  to  a  millwheel,  with  the  handle 
forward,  so  as  to  develop  itself  into  a  neck  by  moving 
always  in  the  same  direction,  and  within  continual 
hearing  of  a  steam-whistle,  after  a  certain  number  of 
revolutions  the  hairbrush  will  fall  in  love  with  the 
whistle ;  they  will  marry,  lay  an  eggf  and  the  produce 
will  be  a  nightingale."  Although  perhaps  some- 
what extravagant,  this  interpretation  of  the  origins 
of  beauty  does  not  differ  very  largely  from  state- 
ments propounded  with  great  gravity  by  learned  men. 
"The  Theorists  of  development  say,  I  suppose,  that 
partridges  get  brown  by  looking  at  stubble,  seagulls 
white  by  looking  at  foam,  and  jackdaws  black  by 
looking  at  clergymen."  After  these  hypotheses  we 
may  perhaps  be  permitted  to  remark  that  the  feathers 
of  birds  are  usually  "  reserved  and  quiet  in  colour " 
when  they  are  "  feathers  of  force  "  and  brilliant  when 
they  are  intended  for  "  decoration  or  expression." — 
"  There  is  no  iridescent  eagle,  no  purple  and  golden 
seagull ;  while  a  large  mass  of  coloured  birds — parrots, 
pheasants,  humming  birds — seem  meant  for  human 
amusement.  Seem  meant — dispute  it  if  you  will :  no 
matter  what  they  seem,  they  are  the  most  amusing 
and  infinitely  delicious  toys,  lessons,  comforts,  amaze- 
ments, of  human  existence." 


I.   NATURE  171 

Thus  when  an  explanation  is  offered  of  the  creation 
of  birds  or  any  other  organised  creatures,  its  artistic 
side  must  not  be  overlooked.  "  Hold  fast  to  the  form 
and  defend  that  first  as  distinguished  from  the  mere 
transition  of  forces.  Discern  the  moulding  hand  of 
the  potter  commanding  the  clay  from  his  merely 
beating  foot  as  it  turns  the  wheel.  It  is  curious  how 
far  mere  form  will  carry  you  ahead  of  the  philoso- 
phers." For  the  aesthetic  instinct  proceeds  by  syn- 
thesis, and  "a  modern  philosopher  is  a  great  separator: 
it  is  little  more  than  the  expansion  of  Moliere's  great 
sentence :  'It  follows  from  this  that  all  that  is 
beautiful  is  to  be  found  in  dictionaries,  it  is  only  the 
words  which  are  transposed.'"  But  "there  is  beyond 
the  merely  formative  and  sustaining  power  another 
which  we  painters  call  '  passion.' "  "  I  don't  know 
what  the  philosophers  call  it ;  we  know  it  makes  people 
red  or  white ;  and  therefore  it  must  be  something 
itself:  and  perhaps  it  is  the  most  truly  'poetic'  or 
'  making '  force  of  all,  creating  a  world  of  its  own  out 
of  a  glance,  or  a  sigh  :  and  the  want  of  passion  is 
perhaps  the  truest  death,  or  'unmaking'  of  every- 
thing;— even  of  stones." 

Now  this  power  is  that  of  the  artist ;  and  it  is  un- 
mistakable. "  I  can  very  positively  assure  }'ou  that 
in  my  poor  domain  of  imitative  art,  not  all  the 
mechanical  or  gaseous  forces  of  the  world,  nor  all 
the  laws  of  the  universe,  will  enable  you  either  to 
see  a  colour,  or  draw  a  line,  without  that  singular 
force  anciently  called  the  soul."  The  power  of  chance 
is  very   great   but    it    is    not    artistic,   and    though    if 


172    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

forced  to  it  we  might  imagine  "a  clock  without  a 
clockmaker,"  it  is  very  difficult  to  study  a  master- 
piece and  forthwith  deny  the  master.  The  learned 
are  quite  at  their  ease  over  this  problem.  They  do 
not  see  the  picture !  The  more  they  reason  about 
the  aesthetical  side  of  nature,  the  more  they  prove 
by  their  arguments  that  they  do  not  perceive  it. 
When  they  pretend  to  explain  the  Beautiful  by  the 
Useful,  "  they  can  be  compared  to  nothing  so  accur- 
ately as  to  the  woodworms  in  the  panel  of  a  picture 
by  some  great  painter,  if  we  may  conceive  them  as 
tasting  with  discrimination  of  the  wood,  and  with  re- 
pugnance of  the  colour,  and  declaring  that  even  this 
unlooked-for  and  undesirable  combination  is  a  normal 
result  of  the  action  of  molecular  Forces." 

For  those  who  have  seen  the  picture,  for  those  who 
have  found  the  happiness  of  their  lives  in  its  varied 
and  delicate  colour,  its  hues  spiritual,  harmonious, 
and  powerful,  who  have  loved  it  with  the  passion  of 
youth  and  sought  to  produce  unworthy  though  faith- 
ful imitations,  who  have  suffered  when  anything 
came  to  tarnish  it  and  wept  for  joy  when  it  was 
restored  to  them  in  its  primitive  purity,  for  such  as 
these  the  problems  of  creation  cannot  be  altogether 
solved  by  "  variations  of  species,"  and  the  last  word 
is  not  said  though  men  have  thought  for  six  thou- 
sand years. 

''The  sesthetic  relations  of  species  are  independent 
of  their  origin.  The  flower  is  the  end  or  proper  object 
of  the  seed,  not  the  seed  of  the  flower.  The  reason 
for  seeds  is  that  flowers  may  be;  not  the  reason  of 


I.    NATURE  173 

flowers  that  seeds  may  be.  The  flower  itself  is  the 
creature  which  the  spirit  makes;  only,  in  connection 
with  its  perfectness,  is  placed  the  giving  birth  to  its 
successor.  The  main  fact  then  about  a  flower  is  that 
it  is  the  part  of  the  plant's  form  developed  at  the 
moment  of  its  intensest  life :  and  this  inner  rapture 
is  usually  marked  externally  for  us  by  the  flush  of  one 
or  more  of  the  primary  colours.  What  the  character 
of  the  flower  shall  be,  depends  entirely  upon  the 
portion  of  the  plant  into  which  this  rapture  of  spirit 
has  been  put.  Sometimes  the  life  is  put  into  its  outer 
sheath,  and  then  the  outer  sheath  becomes  white  and 
pure,  and  full  of  strength  and  grace ;  sometimes  the 
life  is  put  into  the  common  leaves,  just  under  the 
blossom,  and  they  become  scarlet  or  purple;  sometimes 
the  life  is  put  into  the  stalks  of  the  flower,  and  they 
flush  blue ;  sometimes  into  its  outer  enclosure  or 
calyx ;  mostly  into  its  inner  cup ;  but,  in  all  cases, 
the  presence  of  the  strongest  life  is  asserted  by  char- 
acters in  which  the  human  sight  takes  pleasure,  and 
which  seem  prepared  with  distinct  reference  to  us, 
or  rather,  bear,  in  being  delightful,  evidence  of  having 
been  produced  by  the  power  of  the  same  spirit  as  our 
own.  .  .  .  And  observe,  again  and  again,  with  respect 
to  all  these  divisions  and  powers  of  plants,  it  does  not 
matter  in  the  least  by  what  concurrences  of  circum- 
stance or  necessity  they  may  gradually  have  been 
developed  :  the  concurrence  of  circumstance  is  itself 
the  supreme  and  inexplicable  fact.  We  always  come 
at  last  to  a  formative  cause,  which  directs  the  circum- 
stance and  mode  of  meeting  it.     If  you  ask  an  ordinary 


174    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

botanist  the  reason  of  the  form  of  a  leaf,  he  will  tell 
you  it  is  a  '  developed  tubercle,'  and  that  its  ultimate 
form  '  is  owing  to  the  directions  of  its  vascular 
threads.'  But  what  directs  its  vascular  threads  ? 
'  They  are  seeking  for  something  they  want,'  he  will 
probably  answer.  What  made  them  want  that  ? 
What  made  them  seek  for  it  thus  ?  Seek  for  it,  in 
five  fibres  or  in  three  ?  Seek  for  it,  in  serration,  or 
in  sweeping  curves  ?  Seek  for  it,  in  servile  tendrils, 
or  impetuous  spray  ?  Seek  for  it,  in  woollen  wrinkles 
rough  with  stings,  or  in  glossy  surfaces,  green  with 
pure  strength,  and  winterless  delight  ?  There  is  no 
answer.  But  the  sum  of  all  is,  that  over  the  entire 
surface  of  the  earth  and  its  waters,  as  influenced  by 
the  power  of  the  air  under  solar  light,  there  is  de- 
veloped a  series  of  changing  forms,  in  clouds,  plants, 
and  animals,  all  of  which  have  reference  in  their  action 
or  nature  to  the  human  intelligence  that  perceives 
r  them ;  and  on  which,  in  their  aspects  of  horror  and 
beauty,  and  their  qualities  of  good  and  evil,  there  is 
engraved  a  series  of  myths,  or  words  of  the  forming 
power,  which,  according  to  the  true  passion  and  energy 
of  the  human  race,  they  have  been  enabled  to  read 
into  religion.  And  this  forming  power  has  been  by 
all  nations  partly  confused  with  the  breath  or  air 
through  which  it  acts,  and  partly  understood  as  a 
creative  wisdom;  proceeding  from  the  Supreme  Deity; 
but  entering  into  and  inspiring  all  intelligences  that 
work  in  harmony  with  Him.  And  whatever  intel- 
lectual results  may  be  in  modern  days  obtained  by 
regarding  this  effluence  only  as  a  motion  or  vibration, 


I.   NATURE  1 75 

every  formative  human  art  hitherto,  and  the  best 
states  of  human  happiness  and  order,  have  depended 
on  the  apprehension  of  its  mystery  (which  is  certain) 
and  of  its  personality  (which  is  probable)." 

At  this  point  the  Prophet  of  the  Beautiful  stops. 
He  has  said  enough  for  those  who  love  Nature,  and 
too  much  for  those  who  do  not  love  her.  Yet  he  ' 
cannot  be  reproached  either  with  prejudice  or  dogma- 
tism. He  affirms  only  what  his  eyes  have  seen  :  he 
repeats  only  what  his  ears  have  heard.  The  faith 
that  cradled  his  childhood  is  long  since  vanished  under 
the  stress  of  doubt.  From  the  professorial  chair  at 
Oxford,  to  the  scandal  of  the  old  university,  he  attacked 
with  righteous  indignation  the  tyranny  of  dogma  and 
"  the  insolence  of  faith."  He  denounced  the  pride  of 
that  church  which  "  imagines  that  myriads  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  world  for  four  thousand  years  have 
been  left  to  wander  and  perish,  many  of  them  ever- 
lastingly, in  order  that,  in  fulness  of  time,  divine 
truth  might  be  preached  sufficiently  to  ourselves,"  and 
derided  those  mystics  "  who  are  withdrawn  from  all 
such  true  service  of  man,  that  they  may  pass  the  best 
part  of  their  lives  in  what  they  are  told  is  the  service 
of  God ;  namely,  desiring  what  they  cannot  obtain, 
lamenting  what  they  cannot  avoid,  and  reflecting  on 
what  they  cannot  understand."  Yet  he  renounced 
not  at  the  behest  of  materialism  the  free  discussion 
of  his  perceptions,  nor  bowed  the  knee  before  "the 
insolence  of  science."  He  maintained  at  the  doors  of 
laboratories  the  same  earnest  scepticism  he  dared  to 
advocate  in   the  precincts  of  cathedrals.     He  would 


176    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

not  by  denying  or  belittling  the  problems  before  him 
accept  the  solutions  of  either  reason  or  faith.  In 
the  fulness  of  his  strength  and  fame,  in  all  sanity  of 
thought,  and  before  the  evening  of  life,  Ruskin  turned 
again  to  Nature  and  found  her  still  unexplained,  if 
not  in  her  forces  at  least  in  her  beauty.  The  Beauty 
of  Nature,  he  always  insisted,  is  the  mainspring  of 
men's  actions,  the  supreme  joy  and  the  law  for  ever. 
Therefore  it  demands  explanation,  or,  if  it  cannot 
be  explained,  the  mystery  which  hangs  about  our 
most  intense  life,  the  life  of  "admiration,"  must  be 
acknowledged.  The  gate  of  the  Unknown,  that 
science  would  fain  close,  he  opens  quietly  but  firmly, 
showing  that  there  is  no  one  science,  but  simply 
divers  sciences,  and  among  them  one  so  little  ad- 
vanced as  to  be  hardly  recognised  or  definable,  but 
which  must  exist  since  its  object  plays  so  important 
a  part  among  those  things  which  make  us  what  we 
are,  as  well  as  among  those  which  we  ourselves  create. 
It  seems  clear  to  him  that  the  question  he  asked 
remains  unanswered,  and  that  there  is  truly  "  more 
^Esthetic  in  heaven  and  earth,"  than  is  taught  in  our 
schools  of  philosophy.  .  .  . 

Thus  he  returns  to  the  God  of  his  youth,  not  so 
much  because  He  is  Truth  as  because  He  is  the 
revelation  of  Beauty,  and  the  philosophers  explain 
only  Ugliness.  Throughout  the  range  of  legend  he 
yields  to  the  spell  that  mars  no  beauty  and  casts  no 
gloom,  and  that  accords  best  with  his  own  "  theoretic 
faculty."  Christ  becomes  for  him  the  supreme  and 
benign  Artist  Who  works  with  His  hands  to  adorn 


I.   NATURE  177 

the  dwelling-place  of  man ;  He  is  the  Gardener  met 
by  the  Magdalen,  Who  watches  over  new-born  flowers; 
He  is  the  unknown  Painter  Who  gives  to  the  edge  of 
the  gentian  the  touch  that  beautifies;  He  is  the  subtle 
Weaver  Who  arrays  the  lily  in  glory  greater  than  that 
of  Solomon ;  He  is  the  Labourer  in  the  vineyard, 
admitted  to  the  feast  of  Cana,  Who  in  every  cluster 
of  grapes  changes  the  water  of  earth  and  heaven  into 
wine.  In  the  awakening  of  Spring,  in  the  light  that 
shines  on  the  hills,  in  the  refreshing  stream  from  the 
mountain, — Christ  is  all  in  all.  He  is  Nature,  He  is 
Beauty,  He  is  Love.  We  cannot  then  wonder  that 
the  disciple  of  Beauty  is  the  disciple  of  Christ;  nor 
yet  that,  towards  the  evening  of  his  life  in  September 
1888,  when  making  his  intellectual  testament  and 
garnering  into  a  sheaf  all  the  radiance  of  his  thought 
— as  the  sun  at  the  moment  of  setting  seems  to  gather 
up  every  beam  it  scattered  during  the  day,  Ruskin 
says:  "And  now,  in  writing  beneath  the  cloudless 
peace  of  the  snows  of  Chamouni,  what  must  be 
really  the  final  words  of  the  book  which  their  beauty 
inspired  and  their  strength  guided,  I  am  able,  with  yet 
happier  and  calmer  heart  than  heretofore,  to  enforce 
its  simplest  assurance  of  Faith,  that  the  knowledge  of 
what  is  beautiful  leads  on,  and  is  the  first  step  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  things  which  are  lovely  and  of 
good  report ;  and  that  the  laws,  the  life,  and  the  joy 
of  Beauty,  in  the  material  world  of  God,  are  as  eternal 
and  sacred  parts  of  His  creation  as,  in  the  world  of 
spirits,  virtue;  and  in  the  world  of  angels,  praise." 

M 


CHAPTER  II 
"ART" 


If  this  be  Nature,  what  must  be  demanded  of  Art  ? 
Verily  something  exceeding  great,  and  at  the  same 
time  exceeding  humble ;  great  compared  with  our- 
selves, humble  compared  with  Nature.  For  if  "  the  ■ 
life,  the  joys,  and  the  laws  of  Beauty  in  God's 
material  world  are  as  sacred  a  part  of  His  creation 
as"  virtue  in  the  world  of  spirits,  the  man  who 
investigates  those  laws  recalls  those  joys,  and  pro- 
longs that  life,  the  artist,  accomplishes  one  of  the 
highest  tasks  of  humanity.  He  stands  between  us 
and  nature.  He  is  the  decipherer,  the  singer,  the 
recorder.  All  others  have  their  divers  pursuits,  their 
writing,  their  cricket,  their  business.  His  mission 
is  to  arrest  and  say  to  us  :  "  Look  at  this  pebble 
and  its  veins.  Look  at  this  blade  of  grass  and 
learn  its  lesson.  Look  at  this  muscle.  Look  at  this 
sky.  .  .  .  Do  you  think  this  is  purposeless  ?  " 

"Who,    among   the    whole    chattering   crowd,    can 
tell  me  of  the  forms  and  the  precipices  of  the  chain 

of  tall  white   mountains  that  girded   the  horizon  at 

178 


II.  ART  i79 

noon  yesterday  ?  " — "  One  says,  it  has  been  wet ; 
and  another,  it  has  been  windy;  and  another,  it  has 
been  warm." — "Who  saw  the  narrow  sunbeam  that 
came  out  of  the  south,  and  smote  upon  their  summits 
until  they  melted  and  mouldered  away  in  a  dust  of 
blue  rain  ?  "  The  artist  sees  it  all.  He  makes  us 
pause  with  him,  or  at  any  rate  he  makes  it  pause 
for  us.  For  this  man  performs  miracles.  "  He  may 
at  last  literally  command  the  rainbow  to  stay  and 
forbid  the  sun  to  set  .  .  .  he  incorporates  the  things 
which  have  no  measure  and  immortalises  the  things 
that  have  no  duration."  He  watches  Nature  like  a 
sentry.  He  awakens  our  admiration.  He  grasps 
elusive  laws ;  he  gives  us  living  joys ;  it  is  he  who 
unfolds  the  aesthetical  mysteries  that  bind  us  to 
things  on  high  and  to  things  on  earth.  Further,  it 
is  he  who  shows  us  how  his  age  and  his  country 
understood  these  things,  and  who  bequeathes  to  us 
the  truest  testimony.  "Great  nations  write  their 
autobiographies  in  three  manuscripts :  the  book  of 
their  deeds,  the  book  of  their  words,  and  the  book 
of  their  art.  Not  one  of  these  books  can  be  under- 
stood unless  we  read  the  two  others ;  but  of  the 
three,  the  only  quite  trustworthy  one  is  the  last. 
The  acts  of  a  nation  may  be  triumphant  by  its  good 
fortune;  and  its  words  mighty  by  the  genius  of  a 
few  of  its  children  ;  but  its  art,  only  by  the  general 
gifts  and  common  sympathies  of  the  race."  Thus 
towards  ourselves  "all  art  is  teaching." 

But  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  way  that 


180    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

the  function  of  Art  is  very  great  as  regards  ourselves, 
it  is  very  humble  as  regards  Nature.  With  regard  to 
her  "all  art  is  Praise."  For  if  the  material  world 
has  been  specially  organised  with  artistic  design — if 
the  clouds  are  painted  al  fresco  each  evening  to 
delight  our  eyes  as  we  look  up,  and  the  blossoms 
washed  with  colour  each  morning  to  delight  them 
when  they  look  down — it  is  in  Nature  that  we  must 
seek  for  all  Beauty.  She  is  the  supreme  type  and 
the  eternal  model.  Beauty  is  not  found  in  dreams 
of  the  imagination,  or  in  some  ideal  imposed  by  tra- 
dition. "  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  leaf  that  fades  and 
falls  to  the  passing  wind,  in  the  smallest  pebble  which 
rolls  down  from  the  mountain,  in  the  frailest  reed 
which  bends  over  the  water.  ...  In  each  of  these 
things  the  eye  of  an  artist  discerns  the  signature  of 
the  Supreme  Artist.  Nowhere  has  He  forgotten  to 
impress  the  Seal  of  Beauty." 

What  matter  if  a  passer  by,  absent  and  preoccu- 
pied, observed  not  the  beauty  of  a  dead  leaf  touched 
by  the  sun  at  the  door  of  a  picture-gallery,  and  when 
within  the  gallery  admired  the  picture  of  some  such 
leaf  touched  by  the  far  weaker  paint-brush  of  a  Vene- 
tian. What  matter  that  when  he  reflected  on  it,  he 
was  surprised  and  scandalised  that  Art  should  have 
caused  him  to  admire  the  image  of  something  when 
he  did  not  admire  the  reality.  Finally,  what  matter 
that  this  man  was  Pascal,  and  that  his  observation  is 
a  postulate  of  the  strangest  controversies  on  Nature 
and  Art.     It  merely  proves  that  he  may  be  a  great 


II.  ART  181 

logician  and  a  poor  artist.  No  artist  would  have 
passed  with  indifference  a  leaf  touched  by  the  sun  ; 
he  would  see  it,  would  look  at  it,  would  love  it  for 
its  golden  browns,  for  its  decay,  for  its  touch  of 
light,  and  for  its  effect  as  background ;  if  he  had  his 
paint-box  perhaps  he  would  have  copied  it,  and  thus 
diverted  by  this  little  object  despised  of  Pascal,  he 
would  forget  to  visit  the  collection  of  pictures  which 
Pascal  felt  it  his  duty  to  admire.  For  "  a  true  artist 
always  prefers  those  reflections  which  quiver  in  the 
Grand  Canal  to  those  which  sleep  in  a  Canaletto,  and 
the  bronzed  beggars  who  bask  in  the  sun  at  Seville 
to  the  mellow  flesh  tones  on  the  canvases  of  Murillo." 
"What  healthy  art  is  possible  to  you  must  be  the 
expression  of  your  true  delight  in  a  real  thing,  better 
than  the  art.  .  .  .  You  may  think,  perhaps,  that  a 
bird's  nest  by  William  Hunt  is  better  than  a  real 
bird's  nest.  We  indeed  pay  a  large  sum  for  the  one, 
and  scarcely  care  to  look  for,  or  save,  the  other.  But 
it  would  be  better  for  us  that  all  the  pictures  in  the 
world  perished,  than  that  the  birds  should  cease  to 
build  nests."  Yes,  leaf  or  nest,  branch  or  pebble, 
pearl  or  wave,  in  Nature  all  is  Beauty. 

It  is  useless  to  seek  for  it  on  rare  occasions  or 
in  passing  effects.  It  is  useless  to  lie  in  wait  for 
marvellous  sunsets  or  to  hunt  on  high  plateaux  for 
a  flower  whose  species  is  almost  extinct.  "  On  the 
shapes  which  in  the  everyday  world  are  familiar 
to  the  eyes  of  men,  God  has  stamped  those  char- 
acters   of    beauty,    which    He    has    made    it    man's 


182     HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

nature  to  love.  .  .  .  Yes.  .  .  .  Only  a  coteau,  scarce 
a  hundred  feet  above  the  rivers,  nothing  like  so  high 
as  the  Thames  banks  between  here  and  Reading, — 
only  a  coteau,  and  a  recess  of  calm  water,  and  a 
breath  of  mist,  and  a  ray  of  sunset.  The  simplest 
things,  the  frequentest,  the  dearest ;  things  that  you 
may  see  any  summer  evening,  by  a  thousand  streams 
among  the  low  hills  of  old  familiar  lands.  Love  them, 
and  see  them  rightly, — Andes  and  Caucasus,  Amazon 
and  Indus,  can  give  you  no  more." 

Idealists  deceive  themselves  when  they  seek  far 
and  high  the  mysterious  formula  which  is  graven 
on  every  leaflet  like  the  fortune  to  be  told  in  every 
open  hand.  The  classical  school  sought  for  it  in 
the  impossible ;  the  romantic  school  sought  for  it  in 
the  exceptional.  It  is  in  the  familiar  and  the  frequent, 
and  we  may  boldly  assume  "that  which  is  most 
(visibly)  frequent  to  be  most  beautiful." 

Mark,  not  in  the  things  of  man  but  in  the  things 
of  Nature,  the  most  ordinary  things  ordained  by  her, 
not  the  extraordinary  things  of  the  gardeners ;  the 
commonest  realities  of  the  mountain  not  the  most 
ingenious  artifices  of  the  mason ;  the  rocks  not  the 
rockeries ;  the  lakes  not  the  reservoirs ;  the  clouds 
not  the  smoke ;  the  mosses  not  the  carpets.  There 
will  indeed  be  relics  of  nature  and  in  consequence 
relics  of  beauty  in  a  plant  trained  on  a  wall,  in  a  tree 
pruned  for  its  crop  of  fruit  or  leaves,  in  a  field  satu- 
rated with  superphosphates,  in  a  canal  made  with 
concrete   for   irrigation.      But   these   are  only  relics, 


II.  ART  183 

poor  recollections  of  the  great  one  we  have  defaced. 
We  can  still  love  them  as  we  love  the  features,  how- 
ever withered  and  seamed  and  scarred,  of  a  face  that 
was  dear  to  us.  We  can  no  longer  see  their  proto- 
type and  the  criterion  of  beauty.  Only  in  nature, 
and  in  virgin  nature,  is  it  present,  because  nature  is 
only  truly  herself  when  nothing  has  been  done  to 
travesty  or  deface  her.  "  Note  that  there  is  this 
great  peculiarity  about  sky  subjects,  as  distinguished 
from  earth  subjects  ; — that  the  clouds,  not  being  much 
liable  to  man's  interference,  are  always  beautifully 
arranged.  You  cannot  be  sure  of  this  in  any  other 
feature  of  landscape.  The  rock  on  which  the  effect 
of  a  mountain  scene  especially  depends  is  always  pre- 
cisely that  which  the  roadmaker  blasts  or  the  landlord 
quarries;  and  the  spot  of  green  which  Nature  left 
with  a  special  purpose  by  her  dark  forest  sides,  and 
finished  with  her  most  delicate  grasses,  is  always  that 
which  the  farmer  ploughs  or  builds  upon.  But  the 
clouds,  though  we  can  hide  them  with  smoke,  and  mix 
them  with  poison,  cannot  be  quarried  nor  built  over, 
and  they  are  always  therefore  gloriously  arranged." 

It  is  in  the  presence  of  the  free  unbridled  waves, 
in  the  deep  valleys,  where  the  water,  the  herbs,  the 
lights,  the  shadows,  and  all  living  growths  have  full 
play  that  the  artist  finds  the  keenest  enjoyments  of 
his  life.  "  The  pure  love  of  nature  in  myself  has 
always  been  quite  exclusively  confined  to  wild,  that 
is  to  say,  wholly  natural  places,  and  especially  to 
scenery  animated  by  streams,   or  by  the   sea.     The 


1 84    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

sense  of  the  freedom,  the  spontaneous,  unpolluted 
power  of  nature  was  essential  in  it."  All  that  leads 
back  to  Nature  makes  for  Beauty.  All  that  departs 
from  her  walks  in  the  way  of  ugliness.1 

This  conception  of  Beauty  determines  the  attitude 
the  artist  adopts  towards  Nature,  and  the  attitude  he 
adopts  towards  Nature  is  the  only  question  in  art. 

All  the  technical  experiments  of  a  painter  among 
his  colours  or  pounded  bones,  or  of  the  sculptor 
kneading  his  clay,  all  the  philosophical  comments  of 
aesiheticists  haranguing  in  their  lectures,  lead  back 
at  last  to  this  question  :  What  attitude  to  adopt 
towards  Nature  ?  From  the  answers  given,  all  the 
schools,  cliques,  sects,  and  studios  derive  their  differ- 
ences. Divested  of  the  verbiage  and  ambiguities 
which  encumber  it,  the  question  propounds  itself  to 
these  witnesses  to  the  splendour  of  nature  under 
heaven,  in  just  the  same  form  that  it  is  put  to 
witnesses  of  the  crimes  of  men  in  a  court  of  justice. 
Shall  I  speak  the  truth  ?  Shall  I  speak  the  whole 
truth  ?  Shall  I  speak  nothing  but  the  truth  ?  asks 
the  landscape  painter  under  his  tent,  the  sculptor 
with  his   chisel,   the    portrait    painter  walking   round 

1  On  this  point  as  on  all  others  the  statement  that  we  make  of 
Ruskin's  thought  is  not  based  on  an  isolated  text  nor  on  a  passing 
opinion  of  the  Master,  but  on  the  general  scope  of  his  teaching. 
So  that  the  thesis  here  expounded  is  taken  from  the  works  belong- 
ing to  all  the  periods  of  his  life,  from  Modern  Painters,  published 
1 843- 1 860,  from  Seven  Lamps,  1849,  from  Elements  of  Drawing, 
1857,  from  The  Art  of  England,  1883,  and  from  Praterita,  1883- 
18S9. 


II.  ART  185 

his  model.  Shall  I  draw  the  oak  as  it  appears  to 
me  in  its  entirety,  without  adding  anything  to  it, 
without  falsifying  its  appearance,  but  massing  the 
foliage  and  overlooking  certain  branches  seemingly 
unnecessary  to  its  beauty  ?  or  in  other  terms,  shall 
I  tell  the  truth  ?  Shall  I  draw  the  smallest  details  ? 
Shall  I  mark  out  with  equal  distinctness  even  the 
accidents  and  the  appearances  which  please  me  least 
— in  other  words,  shall  I  tell  the  whole  truth  ?  Shall 
I  not  add  to  the  theme  suggested  by  this  oak,  the 
improvements,  the  embellishments,  all  the  other  ideas 
of  oaks  that  I  may  have — in  a  word,  shall  I  say 
nothing  but  the  truth  ?  According  to  his  decision 
the  artist  will  be  classed  as  an  eclectic,  a  realist,  or 
an  idealist.  He  will  follow  one  of  the  three  great 
theories  whence  all  the  theories  of  art  proceed  ;  the 
theory  of  choice,  the  theory  of  literal  imitation,  the 
theory  of  idealisation. 

We  have  defined  Beauty  to  be  "  the  signature  of 
God  upon  His  works,"  and  even  in  the  very  least; 
of  His  works,  if  we  have  affirmed  that  all  Nature 
is  Beauty,  we  do  not  therefore  accept  the  theory 
of  choice,  still  less  that  of  idealisation,  Choice ! 
Who  would  dare  make  it  ? 

"  Let  therefore  the  young  artist  beware  of  the 
spirit  of  Choice ;  it  is  an  insolent  spirit  at  the  best, 
and  commonly  a  base  and  blind  one  too,  checking  all 
progress  and  blasting  all  power,  encouraging  weak- 
nesses, pampering  partialities.  .  .  ."  "  He  draws 
nothing   well   who    thirsts    not    to    draw    everything; 


1 86    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

when  a  good  painter  shrinks,  it  is  because  he  is 
humbled,  not  fastidious;  when  he  stops,  it  is  because 
he  is  surfeited,  and  not  because  he  thinks  Nature 
has  given  him  unkindly  food.  ...  I  have  seen  a 
man  of  true  taste  pause  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  to 
look*  at  the  channelings  that  recent  rain  had  traced 
in  a  heap  of  cinders.  .  .  .  Perfect  art  perceives  and 
reflects  the  whole  of  nature ;  imperfect  art  is  fasti- 
dious, and  impertinently  prefers  and  rejects." 

Therefore  it  follows  according  to  the  saying  which 
created  Pre-Raphaelitism,  that  the  artist  "  should  go 
to  nature  in  all  singleness  of  heart,  rejecting  nothing, 
selecting  nothing,  and  scorning  nothing." 

Is  it  necessary  to  add  also  idealising  nothing  ?  To 
choose  is  insolence,  but  to  idealise  is  sacrilege.  It 
is  the  paradoxical,  absurd  pretension  of  a  narrow 
mind  which,  unable  to  penetrate  the  beauty  scattered 
throughout  Nature,  undertakes  to  create  beauty  ac- 
cording to  its  own  wretched  imagination.  Imagina- 
tion must  create  nothing;  its  function  is  to  "penetrate 
truth,  to  associate  truth,  to  contemplate  truth."  It 
is  not  to  substitute  or  add  anything  to  truth.  "The 
error  respecting  this  faculty  is,  in  considering  that  its 
function  is  one  of  falsehood,  and  that  its  operation  is 
to  exhibit  things  as  they  are  not."  Why  falsify  when 
the  reality  is  so  beautiful  ?  What  "  moulding  and 
melting  of  individual  beauties  together,"  what  academic 
outline,  what  marble  statues,  could  ever  have  the  value 
of  living  children  of  men  with  "  their  colour  heightened 
by  the  sun,"  and  "  their  hair  drifted  by  the  breeze  "  ? 


II.  ART  187 

"  No  Greek  goddess  was  ever  half  so  pretty  as  an 
English  girl  of  pure  clay  and  temper."  The  greatest 
of  the  Old  Masters  introduced  into  all  their  works 
claiming  imagination,  their  Paradises  and  Resurrec- 
tions, the  true  portraits  of  their  patrons,  of  their  ser- 
vants, of  their  mistresses,  of  their  creditors ;  and  this 
was  "  not  an  error  in  them,  but  the  very  source  and 
root  of  their  superiority  in  all  things ;  for  they  were 
too  great  and  too  humble  not  to  see  in  every  face 
about  them  that  which  was  above  them,  and  which 
no  fancies  of  theirs  could  match  or  take  place  of." 

What  need  have  we  to  paint  those  regions  of 
dreams  to  which  we  have  never  attained,  those  crea- 
tures of  faith  which  we  have  never  seen  ?  When  the 
masters  have  attempted  it  they  have  always  fallen 
therein  below  their  accustomed  level.  "Whatever  is 
truly  great  in  either  Greek  or  Christian  art  is  also 
restrictedly  human,  and  even  the  raptures  of  the 
redeemed  soul  who  enters  '  celestemente  ballands ' 
the  Gate  of  Angelico's  Paradise  were  seen  first  in 
the  terrestrial  yet  most  pure  mirth  of  Florentine 
maidens."  "  Of  that  which  is  more  than  creature  no 
creature  ever  conceived,"  and  it  is  neither  useful  nor 
proper  to  attempt  it.  Not  to  see  beauty  in  a  swallow 
and  to  fancy  we  can  depict  it  in  a  seraph,  what  mad- 
ness !  "If  you  are  not  inclined  to  look  at  the  wings 
of  birds  which  God  has  given  you  to  handle  and  to 
see,  much  less  are  you  to  contemplate  or  draw  imagi- 
nations of  the  wings  of  angels  which  you  can't  see. 
Know  your  own  world  first — not  denying  any  other — 


188    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

but  being  quite  sure  that  the  place  in  which  you  are 
now  put  is  the  place  with  which  you  are  now  con- 
cerned." And  above  all  do  not  dare  under  the  pre- 
tence of  idealism  or  of  mysticism  to  teach  nature  or 
"  to  improve  the  works  of  God." 

Realism  then  is  all  that  is  left  for  us,  and  we 
should  approve  of  it  if  Realism,  as  the  modern  studios 
understand  it,  were  truly  the  imitation  and  worship  of 
nature.  But  far  from  admiring  and  seeking  nature, 
there  is  perhaps  no  school  extant  that  has  more 
deliberately  proscribed  it  and  more  insolently  traduced 
it  than  the  Realistic.  Far  from  attempting  to  repro- 
duce what  is  natural  and  original  in  the  world,  it  has 
set  itself  to  depict  the  artificial  and  the  accidental. 
The  sophism  of  this  school  must  be  unmasked.  Start- 
ing from  a  true  principle,  namely  that  Nature  far 
surpasses  human  imagination,  it  has  by  a  strange 
abuse  of  words  arrived  at  the  extravagant  conclusion 
that  everything  due  to  man's  handiwork — factories, 
pavements,  locomotives,  cabs,  bicycles,  tea-gardens, 
and  railway  banks,  may  be  classed  as  nature,  and 
under  this  title  must  compel  our  admiration.  These 
whimsical  lovers  of  reality  who  begin  by  fabricating 
according  to  their  own  ideas  some  ugly  object  opposed 
to  all  natural  laws,  and  then  assert  that  the  object  is 
beautiful  simply  because  it  is  real,  show  both  a  lack  of 
precision  in  their  argument  (because  in  this  manner 
the  real  cannot  be  contrasted  with  the  artificial)  and 
of  love  for  the  reality,  which  they  disfigure  before 
reproducing. 


II.  ART  189 

They  invent  a  tall  hat,  a  chimney  -  pot  a  huit 
reflets,  and  immediately  reproduce  it  on  canvas  or  in 
bronze,  saying  it  is  beautiful  because  it  is  nature. 
They  go  into  a  bar,  catalogue  its  collection  of  many- 
coloured  bottles,  study  the  dimmed  and  many-spotted 
mirrors,  steep  themselves  in  its  smoky  atmosphere, 
and  then  paint  the  barmaid  in  the  midst  of  this  grim 
circumstance  of  false  civilisation,  and  say  to  us  it  is 
beautiful  because  it  is  nature.  They  go  into  a  hospital 
and  taking  a  face  under  chloroform,  anaesthetised, 
and  insensible,  turn  rlicopJwres  on  to  it,  to  galvanise 
smiles  from  a  suffering  man,  obtain  angry  grimaces 
where  all  was  at  rest,  study  thus  each  movement  of 
the  muscles,  and  then  tell  us  that  they  have  found 
"Nature  and  the  man  that  has  lived,"  when  they 
should  say  that  they  have  taken  pains  to  find  artifice 
and  the  man  that  is  dead.  Even  worse,  they  go 
and  look  for  nature  in  the  theatre  with  the  light  not 
of  the  sun  but  of  the  gas,  lighting  no  living  flesh  but 
"the  gauze  transparencies  of  creatures,"  skimming 
not  the  ground  but  boards,  breathing  not  beneath  the 
clouds  but  "  chemical  illuminations,"  treading  not  with 
bare  lithe  feet  but  pirouetting,  their  toes  deformed  by 
dancing — and  dancing  to  some  pizzicato  mode,  not  to 
a  measure  of  flutes  in  an  ancestral  barn.  Here  is 
Nature,  they  say,  taken  in  the  act,  and  here  also 
is  Beauty.  But  if  this  is  Nature,  what  is  artifice  ? 
If  this  be  the  earth,  where  then  is  the  soil  and  the 
nourishing  corn  and  the  consoling  flowers  ?  If  this 
be  sky,   where  then  is    the    firmament,   whence  come 


igo    HIS  AESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

the  rain  which  fructifies  and  the  rays  which  ripen, 
— to  find  them  again,  rather  let  us  open  our  windows ; 
no,  let  us  leave  the  theatre  where  the  realists  seek 
models  for  their  faces  ;  let  us  pass  the  suburbs  where 
they  seek  the  models  for  their  landscapes ;  and  let 
us  go  forth  where  electricity  does  not  meander  along 
the  ground,  where  the  air  is  not  imprisoned  or  com- 
pressed to  carry  telegrams  but  free  to  form  clouds  ; 
where  "  the  play  shall  be  wholesome  play,  not  in 
theatrical  gardens  with  tin  flowers  and  gas  sunshine, 
and  girls  dancing  because  of  their  misery;  but  in 
true  gardens,  with  real  flowers  and  real  sunshine,  and 
children  dancing  because  of  their  gladness."  There 
is  nature  and  there  also  is  beauty. 

The  plastic  beauty  in  form  as  well  as  the  pictur- 
esque in  landscape — that  is  plain  enough,  for  if  we 
maintain  that  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  human  body 
as  created  by  nature,  we  do  not  say  that  the  types 
ordinarily  chosen  by  the  realists  represent  nature  or 
correspond  to  beauty.  Let  us  take  an  elector  or  a 
petty  official  sitting  outside  a  cafe,  who  with  a  suitable 
gesture  drinks  a  good  bock,  or  tastes  an  absinthe. 
He  is  stooping  under  the  weight  of  inherited  ill,  de- 
formed by  the  accessories  of  modern  costume,  soured 
by  the  passions  and  vices  of  our  time,  his  muscles 
atrophied  by  want  of  use,  his  skin  white  and  dis- 
coloured from  useless  clothing,  his  hand  trembling 
with  drink.  ...  Is  this  the  natural  man,  and  if  ever 
there  was  an  artificial  being  in  the  world  is  it  not 
he  ?      Is  the  morphomaniac  or   the   clilorotic  woman 


II.  ART  i9i 

as  Nature  made  her,  or  the  powdered  and  enamelled 
lady  with  hair  interwoven  with  threads  of  gold  ?  Is 
it  Nature  who  formed  the  hands  of  modern  workmen, 
who  has  put  these  weals  on  the  leather-dresser,  those 
blisters  on  the  workers  in  metal  ?  Is  the  complexion 
of  a  face  under  an  electric  lamp  natural  ?  According 
to  this,  which  would  be  the  true  light,  which  the  arti- 
ficial ?  Doubtless  that  of  the  sun.  .  .  .  Under  what 
pretext  do  the  realists  proscribe  the  lights  of  the 
romanticists  or  of  M.  Hebert  as  false,  as  gleams 
filtered  into  cellars,  when  they  admit  in  their  own 
pictures  the  lights  of  theatres  and  factories,  when  all 
the  artificial  effects  of  M.  Hubert  or  of  M.  Henner 
can  be  obtained  if  necessary  by  the  well-combined  play 
of  gas  and  electricity  ?  When  they  show  us,  in  those 
hospital  scenes  which  they  so  much  affect,  the  electrical 
treatment  on  the  muscles  and  the  skin,  or  when  they 
whiten  the  face  of  a  clown  and  transfer  him  to  their 
canvases,  informing  us  that  these  are  all  realities,  have 
they  truly  any  realism,  and  have  they  any  real  respect 
for  that  nature  whose  name  they  inscribe  on  their 
banner?  No,  the  man  of  nature,  the  true  creature 
supremely  beautiful,  is  such  a  form  as  arises  lithe 
and  joyous  from  the  strong  hand  of  the  Potter  Who 
moulds  the  human  clay,  not  such  as  the  needs,  true  or 
false,  of  civilisation  have  caricatured  it.  It  is  the  man 
of  the  early  ages,  straight  as  a  lath,  not  the  man  of  the 
age  of  steam,  distorted  by  a  false  education.  It  is  the 
Apollo  of  Syracuse,  not  Mr.  Gladstone's  elector.  It 
is  the  man  made  by  nature,  not  the  "  self-made  man." 


192     HIS  ^ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

The  beautiful  is  not  then  to  be  found  in  an  ideal 
on  the  one  hand,  nor  is  it  on  the  other  hand  in  nature 
deformed  as  copied  by  the  realists,  but  in  natural 
Nature,  and  if  in  the  present  day  we  do  not  easily 
find  this  nature,  if  all  the  human  figures  around  us 
are  blurred  by  "  the  visible  and  instant  operation  of 
unconquered  Sin,"  then  let  us  go  back  not  to  a  dream 
but  to  a  reality, — a  reality  which  has  passed  away,  to 
a  memory  of  the  happy  time  when  man,  strong,  pure, 
radiant  and  confident,  stepped  free  in  the  splendid 
landscapes,  not  yet  destroyed  or  polluted.  Plato 
possibly  was  not  very  far  wrong.  The  ideal  of  to- 
day is  perhaps  merely  a  memory  of  the  realities  gone 
by.  .  .  .  Let  us  piously  keep  the  recollection  of  this 
brilliant  vision  not  the  less  real  because  it  has  passed 
away.  Let  us  respect  the  monuments  which  have 
been  left  to  us.  "A  beautiful  thing  may  exist  but 
for  a  moment  as  a  reality ; — it  exists  for  ever  as  a 
testimony.  To  the  law  and  to  the  witness  of  it  the 
nations  must  appeal  in  scecula  scsculortim ;  and  in 
very  deed  and  very  truth  a  thing  of  beauty  is  a  law 
for  ever." 

The  reply  then  to  the  question :  What  is  the  aim 
of  art,  and  what  should  it  show  us  ?  is  simply :  Nature 
as  it  is,  Man  as  he  has  been.  The  road  to  virgin 
nature  is  easy  to  find ;  it  leads  us  to  the  valleys  that 
factories  have  respected  and  to  the  seas  they  cannot 
pollute.  For  the  painter  of  figures  and  for  the 
sculptor,  it  is  perhaps  a  difficult  enterprise  to  re- 
constitute man  not  yet  debased  by  vice  or  deformed 


II.  ART  193 

by  mechanical  labour,  but  at  any  rate  we  must  press 
towards  the  attainment  of  this  reality,  and  not  in  the 
direction  of  anything  but  reality.  We  must  have  no 
abstractions,  additions,  or  embellishments,  but  we  may 
banish  from  the  face  the  signs  of  degradation  that 
the  artificial  life  of  our  day  has  stamped  upon  him. 
We  must  not  invent  anything  outside  reality,  but 
we  may  efface  the  accretions  that  civilisation  and  mis- 
fortune have  added  to  reality.  Thus  we  shall  not  be 
effacing  natural  truths  but  on  the  contrary  reconsti- 
tuting the  true  text  by  getting  rid  of  interpolation. 
"  Now,  first  of  all,  this  work,  be  it  observed,  is  in 
no  respect  a  work  of  imagination.  Wrecked  we  are, 
and  nearly  all  to  pieces ;  but  that  little  good  by 
which  we  are  to  redeem  ourselves  is  to  be  got  out  of 
the  old  wreck,  beaten  about  and  full  of  sand  though 
it  be ;  and  not  out  of  that  desert  island  of  pride 
on  which  the  devils  split  first,  and  we  after  them. 
.  .  .  We  lay  it  down  for  a  first  principle  that  our 
graphic  art,  whether  painting  or  sculpture,  is  to 
produce  something  which  shall  look  as  like  Nature 
as  possible." 

But  Nature  how  looked  at  ?  With  the  eyes  or 
with  the  Rontgen  ray^  ?  Nature  how  touched  ? 
With  the  hand  or  with  the  scalpel  ?  Nature  how 
observed  ?  Contemplatively  during  years  as  by  the 
recluse  of  Mount  Athos  or  of  the  Alps,  or  chrono- 
photographically  in   the  two-thousandth  of  a  second 

N 


t 


194    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

by  a  disciple  of  Mr.  Muybridge  or  of  Mr.  Marey, 
who  arrives,  photographs,  and  departs  by  the  next 
express?  We  must  distinguish,  for  in  ^Esthetics 
words  are  so  accommodating,  and  the  vocabulary 
so  ill  defined,  that  in  saying  we  ought  to  keep  close 
to  Nature  we  may  be  taken  for  a  photographer, 
for  an  anatomist,  for  a  geologist,  for  a  scavenger. 
None  of  these  men  see,  or  come  near  to  seeing, 
Nature  aesthetically,  any  more  than  the  fireman 
standing  behind  the  scenes  has  any  idea  of  the 
effect  of  an  opera.  He  is  opposite  to  the  things 
he  ought  only  to  see  in  profile,  and  deafened  by  a 
single  part,  he  cannot  seize  the  whole.  He  will  only 
see  something  the  day  the  theatre  takes  fire.  We 
shall  need  him  then,  and  he  will  know  better  than 
we  do  why  it  burns,  the  causes  thereof,  and — speak- 
ing of  the  student's  view  of  Nature  —  the  mighty 
convulsions  of  the  human  machine  which  holds  our 
soul,  of  the  earth  and  the  sea  around  us ;  but  in  that 
day  there  will  be  no  more  art,  and  the  spectacle  will 
be  at  an  end.  ...  As  long  as  it  lasts  it  is  not  as  a 
student,  but  as  a  seer  that  we  must  look  at  Nature 

simply  with   the  eyes   of  a   man  "  in   health,"  and 

with  the  heart  of  a  lover  who  seeks  only  to  admire. 
"Turner,  in  his  early  life,  was  sometimes  good- 
natured,  and  would  show  people  what  he  was  about. 
He  was  one  day  making  a  drawing  of  Plymouth 
harbour,  with  some  ships  at  a  distance  of  a  mile 
or  two,  seen  against  the  light.  Having  shown  this 
drawing  to  a  naval  officer,  the  naval  officer  observed 


II.  ART 


195 


J 


with  surprise,  and  objected  with  very  justifiable  in- 
dignation, that  the  ships  of  the  line  had  no  port-holes. 
'  No,'  said  Turner,  '  certainly  not.  If  you  will  walk 
up  to  Mount  Edgecumbe,  and  look  at  the  ships 
against  the  sunset,  you  will  find  that  you  can't  see 
the  port-holes.'  'Well,  but,'  said  the  naval  officer, 
still  indignant,  'you  know  the  port-holes  are  there.' 
'  Yes,'  said  Turner,  '  I  know  that  well  enough ;  but 
my  business  is  to  draw  what  I  see,  and  not  what 
I  know  is  there.' " 

What  we  see,  what  we  know,  what  we  feel,  not 
what  we  understand, — this  is  cesthetical  truth  as 
opposed  to  scientific  truth,  and  this  is  the  truth  which 
Art  should  as  closely  as  possible  express,  and  should 
penetrate  in  order  to  express.  Do  those  learned  men 
who  maintain  that  they  show  things  as  they  are 
adhere  to  the  plan  of  Nature  ?  No,  they  violate 
it,  for  her  plan  is  often  to  show  us  the  things  as 
they  are  not.  And  to  reproduce  the  keels  hidden 
under  the  dark  water,  the  bones  hidden  under  opaque 
flesh,  movements  disguised  by  the  rapidity  with  which 
they  are  executed, — in  a  word,  to  show  in  everything 
the  "  appearances "  she  hides  from  our  eyes  is  not 
to  follow  Nature,  nor  to  be  faithful  to  her, — it  is  to 
betray  her.  All  treachery  is  punished,  and  Nature 
does  not  give  her  full  beauty  to  the  artist  who  has 
questioned  her  without  reverence  and  despoiled  her 
without  love.  She  bestows  her  treasure  on  those 
who  love  her.  She  yielded  herself  to  the  Greeks 
who  beheld  her  in  her  plastic  purity,  living,  moving, 


196    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

blushing,  fading,  trembling  before  them.  .  .  .  The 
Greeks  went  in  quest  of  her  in  full  light  of  day,  in 
the  free  air,  under  the  blue  sky  of  Attica,  following 
her  design  and  the  way  she  wishes  to  be  seen — 
and  they  captured  her  beauty.  The  study  of  the 
nude  is  the  science  of  the  living. 

The  learned  men  of  the  Renaissance  looked  at 
her  otherwise,  with  inquisitorial  and  indiscreet  eyes. 
They  exposed  the  muscle  and  studied  the  anatomy 
of  the  human  frame  by  torchlight,  in  its  darkest 
recesses.  It  is  the  science,  of  the  tomb.  What  has 
come  of  it  ?  Muscles  swollen  and  stiffened,  figures 
as  if  flayed  in  the  pictures  of  Mantegna,  iron-bound 
outlines  as  in  the  engravings  of  Diirer,  bundles  of 
ropes  for  tendons  and  knots  for  muscles.  "  Look 
at  Mantegna's  magnificent  Mythology  of  the  Vices  in 
the  Louvre  for  instance,  the  anatomy  is  entirely 
revolting  to  all  women  and  children.  ...  In  the 
middle  of  the  gallery  of  the  Brera  at  Milan  there  is 
an  elaborate  study  of  a  dead  Christ  entirely  char- 
acteristic of  early  fifteenth-century  Italian  madman's 
work.  It  is  only  an  anatomical  study  of  a  vulgar 
and  ghastly  dead  body,  with  the  soles  of  the  feet  set 
straight  at  the  spectator  and  the  rest  foreshortened. 
It  is  exactly  characteristic  of  this  madness  in  all  of 
them — Pollajuolo,  Castagno,  Mantegna,  Vinci,  Michael 
Angelo — these  great  artists  who  polluted  all  their  work 
with  the  science  of  the  sepulchre." 

The  great   crime  of  the  Renaissance  was  not,  as 
the  Mystics  have  supposed,  indolence  and  pleasure, 


II.  ART  197 

but  knowledge.  The  Renaissance  did  not  sin  by 
too  much  exuberance  of  life,  and  of  love,  but  by 
too  much  ambition,  deadness,  and  horror.  Where 
love  dwells  there  can  be  no  scientific  inquiry,  no 
learned  display  of  discoveries.  We  shall  not  vivisect 
what  we  love.  Elsa  asked  his  name  of  Lohengrin, 
but  not  the  number  of  the  muscles  of  his  skin  nor 
the  form  of  his  spinal  apophyses,  and  even  she 
asked  too  much.  Lohengrin  disappeared.  ...  It  is 
the  eternal  punishment  of  the  scientific  spirit  taking 
the  place  of  love.  This  punishment  awaits  all  our 
investigators,  our  anatomists,  our  radiographists,  our 
chemists,  our  electro-biologists,  our  chronophotogra- 
phers,  and  our  mathematicians.  The  scientist  thinks 
to  discover  movement ;  he  stops  it.  He  thinks  to 
command  light ;  he  destro}^  it.  He  thinks  to  seize 
the  life  of  the  muscle  ;  he  kills  it. 

It  is  the  letter  of  Science  which  killeth,  the  spirit    \ 
of  Art  which  maketh  alive;  the  spirit  of  Art  is  nothing 
but  Love,  simple,  passionate  admiration,  satisfied  with 
what   the   eyes   see,    seeking    neither    to    fathom   its 
mystery  nor  to  improve  it  outwardly.     In  saying  that 
"  all   great  Art    is    Praise,"    Ruskin    means  that    the 
artist  must  not  only  seek  Nature  with  Love  but  come  \ 
to  her  with   reverence,   that    he    must    reverence   not  | 
only  her  forms  and  colours  but  also  her  whole  plan 
and   her  design,  even   in  all   the   details   and   forms 
of  art.     He  will  not  permit  the  artist  to  arrange  or 
order    her   otherwise    than    she    arranges    or    orders 
herself.     He  will  be  careful  how  he  uses   the  word 


1 98    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

"daring  nobility"  in  composition.  He  abominates 
generalisation,  he  distrusts  all  synthesis.  If  he 
admits  that  a  picture  should  have  a  guiding  line,  a 
principal  mass  of  light,  a  dominant  figure,  he  adds 
immediately,  "  it  is  in  the  bad  pictures  that  you 
would  see  this  law  most  rigorously  manifested." 
When  he  speaks  of  harmony  it  is  as  if  he  were 
writing  a  treatise  on  poison.  When  he  permits  the 
grouping  of  figures  he  derives  its  laws  from  the 
|  attentive  examination  of  the  grouping  of  plants.  He 
only  tolerates  the  subordination  of  one  thing  to 
another  because  he  observes  that  whenever  a  leaf 
is  composite — that  is  to  say  divided  into  other  leaflets 
which  imitate  and  repeat  it — these  leaflets  are  not 
symmetrical  like  the  principal  leaf,  but  always  smaller 
in  some  part,  so  that  one  of  the  elements  of  subordinate 
beauty  in  every  tree  consists  in  the  confession  of  its 
own  humility  and  subjection.  The  laws  of  landscape 
control  him  equally  in  sculpture,  and  prompt  those 
of  "  glyptic "  engraving.  He  insists  above  all  that 
the  sculptured  mass  should  present  from  a  distance  a 
pure  and  simple  outline  and  an  imperceptibly  modelled 
surface,  a  "magnificent  attribute  of  reciprocal  inter- 
ference," the  planes  melting  softly  one  into  the  other 
— as  in  Nature  hills  are  seen  at  a  distance  through 
the  rays  of  the  sloping  sun,  or  like  waving  leaves 
or  rounded  fruits  with  no  single  flat  spot,  and  no 
indentations  or  deep  grooves  such  a,s  Bernini  and 
other  artists  of  the  decadence  so  much  affect.  The 
modelling  of  statues  should  follow  the  lines  not  of 


II.  ART  199 

drapery  but  of  the  human  flesh,  and  not  the  flat 
surfaces  designed  by  men,  but  the  rounded  spaces 
decreed  by  God. 

Even  in  architecture  this  "thread  of  Ariadne"  is  to 
guide  us,  because  architecture  is  the  art  next  to 
landscape  which  most  recalls  nature.  Ruskin  likes 
architecture  better  than  statues,  better  than  portraits, 
better  than  anything  which  deals  with  man  alone. 
Because  the  Gothic  style  of  architecture  reproduces 
most  fully  and  most  faithfully  the  sinuosities  of  ^ 
branches,  of  streams,  of  leaves,  and  of  flowers,  he  has 
greatly  preferred  that  style  to  the  Roman,  or  Byzan- 
tine, or  Arab,  or  Renaissance.  In  dark  and  deep 
recesses  of  cathedrals  his  predilections  are  still  those 
of  the  landscape  painter  fascinated  by  the  rocks  and 
the  meadows,  the  rivers  and  the  sunshine.  Among 
the  Baptisteries  he  thinks  of  the  rocky,  beds  whence 
flow  the  rivers,  and  in  view  of  the- cupola  he  thinks  of 
the  rounded  form  of  the  granite  mass.  The  moun- 
tains teach  him  the  construction  of  churches.  In  a 
basilica  he  would  have  the  stones  placed  as  they  lay 
embedded  in  the  quarry,  and  not  "set  up  on  end." 
The  blocks  of  marble  must  lie  in  accordance  with 
quasi  horizontal  lines  because  the  masses  of  the 
Matterhorn  appear  to  lie  thus.  He  looks  askance  at 
the  straight  line,  for  it  is  rarely  to  be  seen  in  Nature 
herself,  and  he  would  have  been  ready  to  attack  the 
cathedrals  of  Pisa,  Florence,  Lucca,  and  Pistoja,  for 
their  geometrical  ornaments  had  he  not  recollected 
just  in  time  that  he  has  seen  the  same  in  crystals. 


i 


200    HIS  AESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

But  as  crystals  are  not  often  to  be  met  with  in  the 
visible  aspects  of  nature,  he  will  not  sanction  the 
frequent  recurrence  of  their  forms  in  decoration. 

Thus  he  is  irritated  by  the  architect  who  rounds 
the  curves  of  the  trefoils  according  to  the  most  exact 
law  of  science.  In  studying  the  Romanesque  and  the 
Byzantine  he  awaits  with  impatience  the  moment 
when  the  arch  takes  the  shape  of  a  leaf,  the  ogive. 
He  watches  the  length  of  the  smooth  and  rounded 
pillars  with  the  anxiety  of  a  Tannhauser,  waiting  till 
his  staff  bursts  into  blossom.  ...  In  proportion  as 
the  leaf  of  the  Greek  acanthus  expands,  subsides, 
"rolls  hither  and  thither,  as  if  just  fresh  gathered 
out  of  the  dew "  in  the  ravine,  in  proportion  as  he 
perceives  the  winding  tracery  of  the  stem  rising  into 
"  wreaths  of  flowers  on  the  capitals,"  he  becomes 
agitated,  he  recognises  a  memory  of  nature,  and  cries  : 
Here  it  is !  He  shares  the  Byzantine  mind,  delight- 
ing in  "  the  delicacy  of  subdivision  which  Nature 
shows  in  the  fernleaf  or  parsleyleaf,  and  so  also 
often  the  Gothic  mind,  much  enjoying  the  oak,  thorn, 
and  thistle."  He  praises  "the  builder  of  the  Ducal 
Palace "  for  "  using  great  breadth  in  his  foliage,  in 
order  to  harmonize  with  the  broad  surface  of  his 
mighty  wall,  as  Nature  delights  in  the  sweeping 
freshness  of  the  dockleaf  or  waterlily."  In  fact  he 
demands  that  architecture  should  place  "her  most 
exuberant  vegetable  ornament  just  where  Nature 
would  have  placed  it." — "  Thus  the  Corinthian  capital 
is   beautiful,    because   it   expands    under   the   abacus 


II.  ART  201 

just  as  nature  would  have  expanded  it;  and  because 
it  looks  as  if  the  leaves  had  one  root,  though  the  root 
is  unseen." 

And  as  in  nature  nothing  is  colourless  or  mono- 
tonous, this  landscape-architect  will  have  his  buildings 
coloured  from  top  to  bottom.  Not  with  red  or  blue 
lines  marking  out  the  blocks  of  stone  or  the  fluting  of 
the  columns  as  the  braided  stripes  of  uniforms  repro- 
duce the  ribs  of  the  human  skeleton,  but  on  the 
contrary  in  varied  tones,  brilliant  and  interlaced, 
overlapping  each  other  like  the  colours  of  a  shield, 
playing  on  the  surface  of  the  building  as  they  play 
in  nature,  softly  veiling  without  hiding  the  interior 
structure  of  the  great  architectural  building  of  stone. 

Even  the  simplest  houses  were  painted  thus  in  old 
days.  At  Venice  "the  arms  of  the  family  were  of 
course  blazoned  in  their  own  proper  colours,  but  I 
think  generally  on  a  pure  azure  ground ;  the  blue 
colour  is  still  left  behind  the  shields  in  the  Casa  Priuli 
and  one  or  two  more  of  the  palaces  which  are  un- 
restored,  and  the  blue  ground  was  used  also  to 
relieve  the  sculptures  of  religious  subjects.  Finally, 
all  the  mouldings,  capitals,  cornices,  cusps,  and 
traceries,  were  either  entirely  gilded  or  profusely 
touched  with  gold." 

Nature  ordains  it.  And  beyond  ordaining  she 
offers  us  the  necessary  materials  for  the  beautifying 
of  our  towns.  "This  rock,  then,  is  prepared  by 
Nature  for  the  sculptor  and  architect,  just  as  paper 
is  prepared  by  the  manufacturer  for  the  artist.     The 


202    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

colours  of  marble  are  mingled  for  us  just  as  if  on  a 
prepared  palette.  They  are  of  all  shades  and  hues 
(except  bad  ones),  some  being  united  and  even,  some 
broken,  mixed  and  interrupted,  in  order  to  supply, 
as  far  as  possible,  the  want  of  the  painter's  power  of 
breaking  and  mingling  the  colour  with  the  brush. 
But  there  is  more  in  the  colours  than  this  delicacy 
of  adaptation.  There  is  history  in  them.  By  the 
manner  in  which  they  are  arranged  in  every  piece  of 
marble,  they  record  the  means  by  which  that  marble 
has  been  produced,  and  the  successive  changes 
through  which  it  has  passed.  And  in  all  their  veins 
and  zones,  and  flame-like  stainings  or  broken  and 
disconnected  lines,  they  write  various  legends,  never 
untrue,  of  the  former  political  state  of  the  mountain 
kingdom  to  which  they  belonged,  of  its  infirmities 
and  fortitudes,  convulsions  and  consolidations,  from 
the  beginning  of  time." 

Let  us  take  these  materials  and  cover  our  dwellings 
with  them.  When  this  is  achieved  we  have  the 
chefs-dceuvre  of  architecture, — the  achievement  of 
Gothic  cathedrals,  painted  doorways,  carved  and 
coloured  woods,  panels  gilded  like  the  sunset.  In 
the  Venetian,  where  all  was  natural  and  covered 
with  paintings  as  rich  as  the  leaves  of  autumn,  we 
find  the  apogee.  The  Renaissance  with  its  grey 
palaces,  its  geometric  panels,  its  precise,  pompous, 
cold  science,  is  the  winter, — "  the  winter  which  suc- 
ceeded was  colourless  as  it  was  cold."  The  day  the 
architect  forgot  Nature  in  all  her  variety  of  form  and 


II.  ART  203 

colour,  that  day  he  lost  sight  of  Beauty.  "  The  de- 
gradation of  the  cinque  cento  manner  of  decoration 
was  not  owing  to  its  naturalism,  to  its  faithfulness  of 
imitation,  but  to  its  imitation  of  ugly,  i.e.  unnatural 
things.  So  long  as  it  restrained  itself  to  sculpture 
of  animals  and  flowers,  it  remained  noble.  But  the 
moment  that  unnatural  objects  were  associated  with 
these,  and  armour,  and  musical  instruments,  and  wild 
meaningless  scrolls  and  curled  shields,  and  other 
such  fancies,"  from  the  day  when  the  landscapists 
gave  place  to  the  archaeologists,  we  feel  the  chill  of 
reopened  sarcophagi,  the  deadly  prick  of  the  com- 
passes, we  feel  the  formalism  of  the  classical  and 
pedantic  spirit  permeating  our  dwellings  and  freezing 
them.  The  ribbon  without  beginning  or  end  re- 
places the  living  grass,  the  senseless  streamer  knots 
together  the  scattered  flowers,  the  sumptuous  folds 
of  draperies  blown  out  by  imaginary  storms  dis- 
guise the  human  form.  "  It  is  as  if  the  soul  of 
man,  itself  severed  from  the  root  of  its  health,  and 
about  to  fall  into  corruption,  lost  the  perception  of 
life  in  all  things  around  it;  and  could  no  more  dis- 
tinguish the  wave  of  the  strong  branches,  full  of 
muscular  strength  and  sanguine  circulation,  from  the 
lax  bending  of  a  broken  cord.  "At  that  moment  the 
doom  of  Naturalism  was  sealed,  and  with  it  that  of 
the  architecture  of  the  world." 

We  are  to  follow  then  in  all  forms  of  art,  painting, 
sculpture,  architecture,  the  path  Nature  traces  for  us 
when  we  behold  her  with  love,  and  we  must  seek 


204    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

after  her  teaching  even  in  the  smallest  technical  detail. 
Her  first  teaching  is  that  of  repose  —  repose  in 
colour,  repose  above  all  in  movement.  Her  transfor- 
mations are  not  rapid,  her  gestures  are  not  vehement. 
The  tree  slowly  extends  itself  towards  the  sun ;  the 
sun  sinks  by  degrees  behind  the  mountain  ;  the  moun- 
tain stands  immovable  for  centuries.  Natural  pheno- 
mena rarely  exhibit  those  rapid  changes  of  scene 
which  are  the  joy  of  children  in  fairyland.  Full- 
grown  men  will  marvel  more  at  the  slow  miracles 
of  germination  or  at  the  gradual  growth  of  islands 
emerging  from  the  sea,  the  product  of  myriads  of 
tiny  insects  during  myriads  of  years.  In  art  we 
must  then  deprive  ourselves  of  all  representation 
of  tumultuous  events,  of  violent  scenes,  of  figures 
which  run,  dance,  fall,  struggle,  or  wound  ;  pictures  of 
battles,  of  the  Last  Judgment,  of  Bacchanalian  feasts, 
of  martyrs  in  great  contortions  of  pain,  victims  nailed 
to  doors,  and  Christs  dying  on  the  Cross.  We  must 
condemn  naturalism  in  death  in  the  name  of  Nature's 
life,  and  also  dying  Christs  in  the  name  of  her 
serenity.  Simple  shepherds  kneeling  around  a  cradle, 
the  play  of  a  fountain  under  the  sky,  the  touch  of  a 
bow  on  a  string,  a  procession  of  knights  to  a  church, 
the  slow  march  of  ambassadors  along  a  canal,  the 
depression  of  Melancholy  amid  the  tools  of  science, 
the  fall  of  roses  from  the  finger-tips  of  an  angel 
one  by  one  on  to  the  soft  form  of  the  infant  Christ 
playing  below, — these  are  the  movements  which  we 
may    reproduce,    because    they    do    not    shock    our 


II.  ART  205 

instinct  of  "  permanence."  The  shepherds  of  Lorenzo 
di  Credi  may  retain  for  any  length  of  time  their  caress- 
ing posture ;  the  monks  of  Mont  Salvat  and  the  great 
nobles  of  Carpaccio  may  pass  eternally  before  our 
eyes  without  fatigue,  Durer's  figure  may  remain  lean- 
ing perpetually  on  her  hand  as  motionless  as  a 
caryatid,  and  the  angel  of  Botticelli  shall  strew  his 
flowers  everlastingly. 

In  the  lines  of  these  scarce  visible  gestures  or  of 
these  pensive  attitudes  care  must  be  taken  to  avoid 
the  restlessness  which  has  been  excluded  from  the 
composition.  We  must  not  contort  the  limbs  or  twist 
the  draperies  of  these  tranquil  personages  after  the 
manner  of  Bernini  or  Gustave  Dore.  "  The  great  and 
temperate  designer  does  not  allow  himself  any  violent 
curves ;  he  works  much  with  lines  in  which  the  curva- 
ture, though  always  existing,  is  long  before  it  is 
perceived."  It  is  quite  the  same  when  he  takes  the 
paint-brush.  As  Nature  teaches  us  repose  of  line, 
she  teaches  us  repose  of  light  and  shade;  and  not 
the  chiaroscuro  of  Salvator  Rosa,  of  Rembrandt,  or 
of  Ribera.  She  does  not  allow  herself  great  divi- 
sions of  light  and  shade,  she  repudiates  illuminated 
dungeons,  the  play  of  dark  lanterns  and  pistol  shots 
in  caverns,  she  abhors  contrasts,  or  tolerates  them 
only  well  disguised,  only  allowing  "  the  opposition  to 
tell  upon  the  mind  as  a  surprise  but  not  as  a  shock." 
Our  interest  in  the  work  of  art  must  be  awakened 
in  the  same  manner  by  the  truth  of  colours  and  not 
by  their  contrasts,  by  the  force  of  the  limbs  and  not 


206    HIS  ^ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

by  their  efforts,  by  their  forms  and  not  by  their 
deformities.  The  scene  portrayed  must  attract  us  not 
by  the  strangeness  of  the  situation,  but  by  the  reality 
of  the  characters.  No  matter  that  there  is  no  action 
amongst  the  figures,  if  the  outline  is  so  pure  and  the 
life  so  intense  that  we  are  in  love  with  this  outline 
and  this  life  for  their  own  sake.  No  matter  that  their 
feet  carry  them  nowhere  if  they  are  beautiful  in 
repose ;  that  their  hands  do  not  work  if  they  hold  in 
their  idle  fingers  "  imprisoned  destinies."  This  is  a 
proof  of  the  greatest  art : — The  figures  in  our  picture 
are  to  be  so  beautiful  that  we  are  moved  to  love 
them,  and  then  all  action,  all  gesture,  all  incident,  all 
movement,  become  immaterial.  "To  be  with  those 
we  love  is  enough,"  says  La  Bruyere ;  "  dreaming, 
speaking,  or  not  speaking,  thinking  of  them,  or  think- 
ing of  indifferent  things,  it  is  all  the  same  to  us  if 
only  we  are  near  them." 

Because  we  regard  her  with  love  Nature  must  be 
reproduced  with  all .  her  minutiae.  The  smallest 
details  about  those  we  love  are  interesting  to  us,  the 
fleeting  expression  of  the  countenance,  the  veriest 
detail  of  the  features,  the  shadow  of  an  eyelid  on 
the  cheek,  the  setting  of  a  nail  on  the  finger,  the  line, 
ever  deepening,  alas,  which  an  invisible  hand  draws 
along  the  forehead.  .  .  .  Thus  Nature  must  be  rendered 
with  "an  eagle's  keenness  of  eye,  fineness  of  finger 
like  a  trained  violinist,  and  patience  and  love  like 
Griselda's."  The  modern  engraver  is  "  presumptuous 
who  covers  his  plate  with  intersecting  lines  sketched 


II.  ART  207 

at  random  in  shadow  with  no  effort  to  express  a 
simple  leaf  or  a  clod  of  earth,"  and  draws  with  flat 
vague  outlines  a  nameless  landscape  which  we  may 
see  anywhere  from  the  window  of  a  railway  carri- 
age travelling  at  sixty  miles  an  hour.  "The  more 
cautious  he  is  in  assigning  the  right  species  of  moss 
to  its  favourite  trunk,  and  the  right  kind  of  weed 
to  its  necessary  stone,  in  marking  the  definite  and 
characteristic  leaf,  blossom,  seed,  fracture,  colour, 
and  inward  anatomy  of  everything,  the  more  truly 
ideal  his  work  becomes.  All  confusion  of  species,  all 
careless  rendering  of  character,  all  unnatural  and 
arbitrary  association,  is  vulgar  and  unideal  in  pro- 
portion to  its  degree." 

But  from  the  very  beginning  this  absolutely  correct 
and  precise  line  must  be  obtained  "with  the  point, 
not  of  pen  or  crayon,  but  of  the  brush,  as  Apelles 
did,  and  as  all  coloured  lines  are  drawn  on  Greek 
vases."  Accustomed  to  draw  with  the  brush,  the 
artist  will  have  much  greater  facility  in  the  execution 
of  his  picture,  for  he  can  at  any  moment  rectify  by 
a  stroke  of  his  brush  any  line  that  a  preceding  touch 
had  obliterated.  The  painter  who  cannot  outline  with 
his  brush  has  not  mastered  the  art  of  drawing.  "  By 
the  greatest  men — by  Titian,  Velasquez,  or  Veronese 
— you  will  hardly  find  an  authentic  drawing  at  all. 
For  the  fact  is,  that  while  we  moderns  have  always, 
learned,  or  tried  to  learn,  to  paint  by  drawing,  the 
ancients  learned  to  draw  by  painting — or  by  engrav- 
ing, more  difficult  still.     The  brush  was  put  into  their 


208    HIS  .ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

hands  when  they  were  children,  and  they  were  forced 
to  draw  with  that,  until,  if  they  used  the  pen  or 
crayon,  they  used  it  either  with  the  lightness  of  a 
brush  or  the  decision  of  a  graver." 

To  judge  is  to  choose.  Because  in  the  recesses 
of  a  thicket  the  "veins  and  lines  wind  and  cross  by 
millions,  the  leaflets  make  apertures,  the  angles  of 
the  stipules  and  spines  intrude,  the  circles  of  the 
sporangia,  the  ellipses  of  the  tendrils  roll  up,"  because 
in  nature  everything  is  beautiful,  must  her  design 
be  effaced  in  the  drawing  and  her  beauty  lost  in 
her  luxuriance  ?  No.  Nature  has  its  characteristic 
features  and  Art  should  express  them.  "  It  may  be 
with  lines  as  with  soldiers :  three  hundred,  knowing 
their  work  thoroughly,  may  be  stronger  than  three 
thousand  less  sure  of  their  aim."  Moreover  this  is 
exactly  the  meaning  of  the  word  drawing  or  designing 
in  things,  these  qualities  that  Taine  has  defined  as  the 
"essential  qualities  of  the  object."  But  Taine  like  all 
philosophers  maintains  that  the  artist  should  and  can 
make  use  of  this  character  of  Designer  according  to 
his  particular  fancy,  his  special  human  inclinations, 
and  his  individual  temperament.  He  admits  that  in 
so  doing  the  artist  becomes  superior  to  his  model, 
and  that  according  to  the  vigorous  and  adequate 
expression  of  Cherbuliez,  "  he  disentangles  Nature." 
~(Ruskin  never  admits  even  for  an  instant  the  superi- 
J>{ority  of  Art  over  Nature.  The  artist  is  not  free  to 
choose  as  he  will  this  or  that  line  in  Nature ;  the 
conditions  of  his  sight  are  imperative.     Practically  in 


II.  ART  209 

a  thicket  we  do  not  see  all ;  we  cannot  see  all.  .  .  . 
Now  "  the  really  scientific  artist  is  he  who  not  only 
asserts  bravely  what  he  does  see,  but  confesses 
honestly  what  he  does  not.  You  must  not  draw  all 
the  hairs  in  an  eyelash ;  not  because  it  is  sublime  to 
generalise  them  but  because  it  is  impossible  to  see 
them.  How  many  hairs  there  are,  a  sign  painter  or 
anatomist  may  count ;  but  how  few  of  them  you 
can  see,  it  is  only  the  utmost  masters,  Carpaccio, 
Tintoret,  Reynolds,  and  Velasquez,  who  count  and 
know."  Does  the  chiromancer  regard  all  the  cross- 
ings in  the  open  hand  that  you  present  to  him  ?  No. 
There  are  some  lines  which  alone  determine  the 
Fortune — the  master  lines.  "  It  is  by  seizing  these 
leading  lines,  when  we  cannot  seize  all,  that  likeness 
and  expression  are  given  to  a  portrait,  and  grace  and 
a  kind  of  vital  truth  to  the  rendering  of  every  natural 
form.  I  call  it  vital  truth,  because  these  chief  lines 
are  always  expressive  of  the  past  history  and  present 
action  of  the  thing.  They  show  in  a  mountain,  first, 
how  it  was  built  or  heaped  up ;  and  secondly  how  it  is 
now  being  worn  away,  and  from  what  quarter  the 
wildest  storms  strike  it.  In  a  tree,  they  show  what 
kind  of  fortune  it  has  had  to  endure  from  its  childhood  : 
how  troublesome  trees  have  come  in  its  way,  and 
pushed  it  aside,  and  tried  to  strangle  or  starve  it  ; 
where  and  when  kind  trees  have  sheltered  it,  and 
grown  up  lovingly  together  with  it,  bending  as  it  bent ; 
what  winds  torment  it  most ;  what  boughs  of  it  behave 
best,  and  bear  most  fruit,  and  so  on.     In  a  wave  or 

O 


210    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

cloud,  these  leading  lines  show  the  run  of  the  tide 
and  of  the  wind,  and  the  sort  of  change  which  the 
water  or  vapour  is  at  any  moment  enduring  in  its 
form,  as  it  meets  shore,  or  counter-wave,  or  melt- 
ing sunshine.  Now  remember,  nothing  distinguishes 
great  men  from  inferior  men  more  than  their 
always,  whether  in  life  or  in  art,  knotving  the  way 
things  are  going.  Try  always,  whenever  you  look  at 
a  form,  to  see  the  lines  in  it  which  have  had  power 
over  its  past  fate  and  will  have  power  over  its 
futurity.  Those  are  its  awful  lines;  see  that  you 
seize  on  those,  whatever  else  miss." 

§3 

Finally  Nature  teaches  us  the.,  worship  of  colour. 
We  mean  colour  and  not  chiaroscuro,  which  is  quite 
different:  "Here  is  an  Arabian  vase,  in  which  the 
pleasure  given  to  the  eye  is  only  by  lines ; — no  effect 
of  light,  or  of  colour  is  attempted.  Here  is  a  moon- 
light by  Turner,  in  which  there  are  no  lines  at  all,  and 
no  colours  at  all.  The  pleasure  given  to  the  eye  is 
only  by  modes  of  light  and  shade,  or  effects  of  light. 
Finally,  here  is  an  early  Florentine  painting,  in  which 
there  are  no  lines  of  importance,  and  no  effect  of  light 
whatever;  but  all  the  pleasure  given  to  the  eye  is  in 
gaiety  and  variety  of  colour. 

"  In  preparing  to  draw  any  object,  you  will  find  that, 
practically,  you  have  to  ask  yourself,  Shall  I  aim  at 
the  colour  of  it,  the  light  of  it,  or  the  lines  of  it  ?     You 


II.  ART  211 

can't  have  all  three ;  you  can't  even  have  any  two  out 
of  the  three  in  equal  strength. 

"And  though  much  of  the  two  subordinate  qualities 
may  in  each  school  be  consistent  with  the  leading 
one,  yet  the  schools  are  evermore  separate :  as  for 
instance,  in  other  matters,  one  man  says,  I  will  have 
my  fee,  and  as  much  honesty  as  is  consistent  with 
it;  another,  I  will  have  my  honesty,  and  as  much 
fee  as  is  consistent  with  it.  Though  the  man  who 
will  have  his  fee  be  subordinately  honest,  though  the 
man  who  will  have  his  honour,  subordinately  rich, 
are  they  not  evermore  of  diverse  schools  ? 

"  So  you  have,  in  art,  the  utterly  separate  provinces, 
though  in  contact  at  their  borders,  of 

The  Delineators ; 

The  Chiaroscurists ;  and 

The  Colourists ; " 

or,  to  give  them  their  right  names,  the  schools  of 
Raphael,  Rembrandt,  and  Fra  Angelico ;  the  laws 
of  Rome,  the  laws  of  Amsterdam,  and  the  Laws  of 
Fesole. 

It  is  Nature  herself  who  teaches  us  the  Laws  of 
Fesole.  There  have  been  great  masters  in  the  three 
schools,  just  as  in  the  dissensions  of  the  Church 
there  have  been  saints  in  every  order.  But  the  true 
draughtsman  is  to  look  at  things  in  the  light  of  the 
sun  which  shimmers,  trembles,  and  blurs  the  lines. 
The  chiaroscurists  have  looked  at  them  in  the  half 
light  and  in  the  mystery  of  the  studio,  the  walls  of 


212    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

which  they  have  sometimes  painted  in  black,  so  as 
to  concentrate  all  the  strength  of  light  into  a  focus 
which  kindles  the  flesh  tints,  which  flashes  on  armour, 
or  lights  the  points  of  spears  like  tapers.  Whoever 
looks  at  things  in  the  full  light  and  full  air,  simply, 
truthfully,  joyously,  as  Nature  herself  shows  them, 
will  see  them  not  in  black  and  white  squares,  but  in 
a  conglomeration  of  coloured  points.  "  It  is  better 
to  consider  all  Nature  merely  as  a  mosaic  of  different 
colours,  to  be  imitated  one  by  one  in  simplicity,"  and 
take  no  count  of  the  supposed  laws  of  chiaroscuro 
or  of  shade.  We  must  follow  Angelico  and  Perugino, 
who  are  without  shade,  without  sadness,  without  evil, 
and  not  Caravaggio  or  Spagnoletto,  these  black  slaves 
of  painting.  In  ourselves  there  is  no  shade  any 
more  than  light ;  there  are  only  degrees  of  colour 
stronger,  deeper,  thicker.  Away  then  with  the  grey, 
the  black,  the  brown,  all  the  tar-brush  of  the  French 
landscapists  of  the  middle  of  the  century,  who  seemed 
to  look  at  "  Nature  carelessly  in  the  dark  mirror." 
We  must  darken  each  tint  not  with  a  mixture  of  dark 
colour  but  with  its  own  tint  strengthened.  Neither 
must  we  speak  of  weakening  anything  under  the  pre- 
text of  "  aerial  perspective."  There  is  no  special  colour 
which  expresses  distance.  It  is  false  that  because  our 
object  is  far  away  it  has  less  colour  than  if  it  were 
near.  "  Vivid  orange  in  an  orange  is  a  sign  of  near- 
ness, for  if  you  put  the  orange  a  great  way  off,  its 
colour  will  not  look  so  bright ;  but  vivid  orange  in 
sky  is  a  sign  of  distance,  because  you  cannot  get  the 


II.  ART  213 

colour  of  orange  in  a  cloud  near  you.  The  green  of 
a  Swiss  lake  is  pale  in  the  clear  waves  on  the  beach, 
but  intense  as  an  emerald  in  the  sunstreak  six  milo§ 
from  shore.  It  is  absurd  to  expect  any  help  from 
laws  of  '  aerial  perspective.'  Look  for  the  natural 
effects,  and  set  them  down  as  fully  as  you  can, 
and  as  faithfully,  and  never  alter  a  colour  because 
it  won't  look  in  its  right  place.  .  .  .  Why  should 
you  suppose  that  Nature  always  means  you  to  know 
exactly  how  far  one  thing  is  from  another  ?  She 
certainly  intends  you  always  to  enjoy  her  colour- 
ing, but  she  does  not  wish  you  always  to  measure 
her  space.  You  would  be  hard  put  to  it,  every 
time  you  painted  the  sun  setting,  if  }'ou  had  to 
express  his  95,000,000  miles  of  distance  in  'aerial 
perspective.' " 

But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  Ruskin, 
this  Guebres  in  love  with  colour,  did  not  appreciate 
both  its  delicacies  and  its  harmonies.  And  as  he 
knew  his  fellow-countrymen's  taste  for  loud  colours, 
he  boldly  warns  them  not  to  trust  in  them.  "  If 
colours  were  twenty  times  as  costly  as  they  are,  we 
should  have  many  more  good  painters.  If  I  were 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  I  would  lay  a  tax  of 
twenty  shillings  a  cake  on  all  colours,  and  I  believe 
such  a  tax  would  do  more  to  advance  real  art  than 
a  great  many  schools  of  design."  Look  at  Nature. 
"She  is  economical  of  her  fine  colours.  .  .  .  You 
would  think  by  the  way  she  paints,  that  her  colours 
cost   her   something  enormous ;    she    will   only   give 


214    HIS  AESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

you  a  single  pure  touch,  just  where  the  petal  turns 
into  light ;  but  down  in  the  bell  all  is  subdued,  and 
under  the  petal  all  is  subdued,  even  in  the  showiest 
flower.  .  .  .  Sometimes  I  have  really  thought  her 
miserliness  intolerable ;  in  a  gentian,  for  instance, 
the  way  she  economises  her  ultramarine  down  in  the 
bell  is  a  little  too  bad."  Like  her,  we  must  be 
lovingly  sparing  of  our  colours.  "  A  bad  colourist 
does  not  love  beautiful  colour  better  than  the  best 
colourist  does,  nor  half  so  much.  But  he  indulges 
in  it  to  excess ;  he  uses  it  in  large  masses,  and  un- 
subdued ;  and  then  it  is  a  law  of  Nature,  a  law  as 
universal  as  that  of  gravitation,  that  he  shall  not  be 
able  to  enjoy  it  so  much  as  if  he  had  used  it  in 
less  quantit}'.  His  eye  is  jaded  and  satiated,  and 
the  blue  and  red  have  life  in  them  no  more.  He 
tries  to  paint  them  bluer  and  redder,  in  vain :  all 
the  blue  has  become  grey,  and  gets  greyer  the  more 
he  adds  to  it ;  all  his  crimson  has  become  brown, 
and  gets  more  sere  and  autumnal  the  more  he  deepens 
it.  But  the  great  painter  is  sternly  temperate  in 
his  work ;  he  loves  the  vivid  colour  with  all  his 
heart ;  but  for  a  long  time  he  does  not  allow  himself 
anything  like  it,  nothing  but  sober  browns  and  dull 
greys,  and  colours  that  have  no  conceivable  beauty 
in  them  ;  but  these  by  his  government  become  lovely : 
and  after  bringing  out  of  them  all  the  life  and  power 
they  possess,  and  enjoying  them  to  the  uttermost, — 
cautiously,  and  as  the  crown  of  his  work,  and  the 
consummation  of  its  music,  he  permits  the  momentary 


II.  ART  215 

crimson   and    azure,  and    the   whole   canvas  is  in  a 
flame." 

r"Jhe  plan  of  Nature  must  be  imitated  not  only  in 
.colour  but  also  in  composition.  "There  are  all  kinds 
of  harmonies  in  a  picture,  according  to  its  mode  of 
production.  There  is  even  a  harmony  of  touch.  If 
you  paint  one  part  of  it  very  rapidly  and  forcibly, 
and  another  part  slowly  and  delicately,  each  division 
of  the  picture  may  be  right  separately,  but  they  will 
not  agree  together.  .  .  .  Similarly,  if  you  paint  one 
part  of  it  by  a  yellow  light  in  a  warm  day,  and 
another  by  a  grey  light  in  a  cold  day,  though  both 
may  have  been  sunlight,  and  both  may  be  well  toned, 
and  have  their  relative  shadows  truly  cast,  neither 
will  look  like  light;  they  will  destroy  each  other's 
power."  This  clearness,  this  precision  of  effect,  must 
govern  all  the  details  of  the  composition.  No  more 
retouches,  no  more  daubs,  no  more  blotchy  lines, 
no  more  dragged  paint-brushes,  no  more  slips,  no 
more  spreading  of  colour  with  the  palette  knife.  Our 
colours  are  to  be  kept  dry  and  our  palette  clean,  so 
that  we  can  clearly  see  the  pure  tint,  and  may  not 
be  tempted  to  mix.  Turner  did  quite  the  contrary, 
it  is  true,  and  his  palette  kept  in  the  National 
Gallery  is  an  eloquent  witness  of  it;  but  on  this 
point  Ruskin  disavows  him.  By  the  same  rule  he 
forbids  all  medium,  varnish,  bitumen,  and  even  water. 
Thus  in  water-colour  he  forbids  great  washes  and 
wetted  surfaces.  He  speaks  of  the  sponge  as  of 
a   monster.      The    wet    blot   is   his    nightmare.      He 


216    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

condemns  coarse  paper  because  it  holds  the  water. 
He  is  a  water-colourist  with  a  horror  of  water.  If 
we  ask  how  we  are  to  weaken  the  colour  he  teaches 
us  to  use  white.  His  fear  of  a  daub  leads  him  to 
body-colour.  For  he  is  not  one  of  those  who  say 
with  admiration :  This  is  done  with  nothing  at  all. 
He  likes  what  is  done  with  something.  He  has  no 
care  for  transparency.  "  I  am  now  entirely  convinced 
that  the  greatest  things  that  are  to  be  done  in  art 
must  be  done  in  dead  colour.  The  habit  of  de- 
pending on  varnish  or  on  lucid  tints  for  trans- 
parency, makes  the  painter  comparatively  lose  sight 
of  the  nobler  translucence  which  is  obtained  by 
breaking  various  colours  amidst  each  other.  All  the 
degradation  of  art  which  was  brought  about  after 
the  rise  of  the  Dutch  school,  by  asphaltum,  yellow 
varnish,  and  brown  trees  would  have  been  prevented, 
if  only  painters  had  been  forced  to  work  in  dead 
colour.  Any  colour  will  do  for  some  people,  if  it  is 
browned  and  shining ;  but  fallacy  in  dead  colour  is 
detected  on  the  instant.  I  even  believe  that  when- 
ever a  painter  begins  to  wish  that  he  could  touch 
any  portion  of  his  work  with  gum,  he  is  going 
wrong.  "Whatever  may  be  the  pride  of  a  young 
beauty  in  the  knowledge  that  her  eyes  shine  (though 
perhaps  even  eyes  are  most  beautiful  in  dimness), 
she  would  be  sorry  if  her  cheeks  did ;  and  which  of 
us  would  wish  to  polish  a  rose  ?  " 

Then  we  must  make  frescoes  ?    Yes,  and  better  still 
mosaics.    "  In  drawing  the  trunk  of  a  birch  tree,  there 


II.  ART  217 

will  be  probably  white  high  lights,  then  a  pale  rosy 
grey  round  them  on  the  light  side,  then  a  (probably 
greenish)  deeper  grey  on  the  dark  side,  varied  by 
reflected  colours,  and,  over  all,  rich  black  strips  of 
bark  and  brown  spots  of  moss.  Lay  first  the  rosy 
grey,  leaving  white  for  the  high  lights  and  for  the 
spots  of  moss,  and  not  touching  the  dark  side.  Then 
lay  the  grey  for  the  dark  side,  fitting  it  well  up  to 
the  rosy  grey  of  the  light,  leaving  also  in  this  darker 
grey  the  white  places  in  the  paper  for  the  black  and 
brown  moss ;  then  prepare  the  moss  colours  separately 
for  each  spot,  and  lay  each  in  the  white  place  left 
for  it." 

This  system  of  marking  out  applied  to  oil-painting 
leads  the  artist  to  superpose  the  leaves  of  a  tree  into 
the  sky,  or  to  cut  out  pieces  of  the  sky  in  the  inter- 
stices already  made  without  repainting  these  on  those 
or  those  on  these.  This  is  a  condemnation  of  Corot 
and  of  nearly  all  our  great  landscapists.1 

"In  fact  Ruskin  would  not  have  mixed  colour  on 
his  palette  any  more  than  on  his  canvas.  We  may 
mix  two  colours  together  if  we  will,  but  not  more. 
"  If  you  have  laid  a  red  colour,  and  you  want  a 
purple  one  above,  do  not  mix  the  purple  on  your 
palette   and   lay  it   on   so   thick  as   to  overpower  the 

1  It  is  perhaps  necessary  to  repeat  here  where  the  Ruskinian  theory 
most  shocks  our  French  ideas  on  colour  and  composition,  that  the 
author  of  these  pages  intends  in  no  way  to  state  the  truth  on 
this  question  but  only  Ruskin's  opinion,  and  even  if  this  opinion 
seems  worthy  of  investigation,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  should  be 
adopted. 


218    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

red,  but  take  a  little  thin  blue  from  your  palette  and 
lay  it  lightly  over  the  red,  so  as  to  let  the  red  be 
seen  through,  and  thus  produce  the  required  purple." 
Better  still,  place  the  bright  colours  in  little  spots  on 
or  in  the  interstices  of  the  others  and  "  carry  out  the 
principle  of  separate  colours  to  the  utmost  possible 
refinement ;  using  atoms  of  colour  in  juxtaposition, 
instead  of  large  spaces."  Finally  he  says,  "  If  you 
have  time,  be  careful  to  get  the  gradated  distribu- 
tion of  the  spots  well  followed  in  the  calceolarias, 
foxgloves,  and  the  like.  "  Practise  the  production  of 
mixed  tints  by  interlaced  touches  of  the  pure  colours 
out  of  which  they  are  formed." 

Is  not  this  pointillisme,  prophesied  here  as  early 
as  1856?  It  certainly  is,  and  although  we  under- 
stand why  some  good  critics  attack  Ruskin,  we  do 
not  understand  why  they  attack  him  as  "  obsolete." 
They  would  be  right  if  they  meant  by  this  that 
he  has  sometimes  defended  certain  eternal  prin- 
ciples which  were  true  before  we  were  born,  and 
which  will  remain  true  when  we  are  no  more.  But 
those  who  have  insinuated  that  he  has  neither  ad- 
mitted nor  understood,  nor  foreseen  the  new  schools, 
make  acknowledgment  that  they  have  not  read  his 
works.  For  the  man  who  in  1843  wrote  that  we 
must  go  to  Nature,  despise  nothing,  reject  nothing, 
and  thus  foretold  what  realism  was  to  be ;  he  who  in 
1846  laid  down  the  rule  that  extreme  tints  and  pure 
colour  might  only  exist  on  points,  and  in  1853  that 
the   landscape  must   be  painted   from   Nature  in  the 


II.  ART  219 

open  air  up  to  the  very  last  touch,  and  thus  foretold 
the  school  of  impressionists,  is  for  all  times  not 
only  a  pioneer  but  the  one  pioneer  amongst  critics 
of  art,  who  are  wont  generally  "  to  fly  to  the  help  of 
victory "  rather  than  take  sides  before  the  battle  and 
lead  a  doubtful  attack. 

In  this  system,  however,  of  minute  drawing  consci- 
entious accentuated  lines,  and  dull  colours  put  on  dis- 
connectedly and  laboriously,  point  by  point,  of  hard, 
dry,  and  honest  stippling,  what  scope  is  left  for  breadth 
of  composition,  flowing  softness  of  touch,  talent  of 
hand,  freedom  of  brush  ?  None  whatever,  because 
there  should  be  none.  Freedom  is  a  vice,  virtuosity 
is  ridiculous.  The  virtuoso  is  a  Pharisee  who  takes 
pleasure  in  himself  and  not  in  beauty.  Having  entered 
into  the  temple  he  does  not  kneel  down  before  the 
supreme  God  of  Beauty  beating  his  breast  and  saying, 
"I  am  a  deformity."  No,  he  struts  about  and  con- 
gratulates himself  for  having  so  little  imitated  the 
saintliness  of  the  model,  and  he  holds  to  it.  He  is  a 
juggler  who  juggles  with  his  ochres,  with  his  ultra- 
marines, and  his  vermilion,  instead  of  bringing  them 
as  tribute  to  priceless  nature  and  illimitable  sky.  He 
says :  "  Look  at  my  cleverness,  look  at  my  dexterity, 
look  at  the  work  of  my  hands."  But  he  does  not  say : 
"See  here,  how  beautiful  she  is!  how  far  above  our 
poor  human  artifice  !  "  He  says  :  "  See  how  with  the 
single  stroke  of  the  brush  I  flashed  the  light  on  to  this 
crystal !  "  but  he  does  not  say :  "  See  how  a  hundred 
strokes    of   the    brush    can    never    give    the    infinite 


220    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

softness  of  this  curve,  the  radiant  colour  of  this  light 
^.composed  of  snow,  of  silver,  of  azure,  and  of  night." 
The  virtuoso  delays  with  his  trills  and  his  wire- 
drawn notes.  Why  ?  Is  it  to  extol  the  deep  voices 
of  nature  ?  No,  it  is  to  extol  his  own  little  larynx. 
He  makes  Art  for  Art's  sake.  The  true  artist 
takes  up  his  tools  not  to  shine  himself,  but  to 
make  others  admire  the  loveliness  of  nature ;  he 
expresses  himself  not  in  liberty  of  success,  but  in 
constraint  of  adoration ;  and  not  in  order  that  men 
should  say :  "  How  clever  he  is ! "  but  that  they 
should  say :  "  How  beautiful  she  is  !  "  He  does  not 
make  Art  for  Art's  sake :  he  makes  Art  for  Nature 
and  for  Beauty. 

Perfection  in  composition,  skill,  and  success  matter 
but  little,  for  it  is  the  effort  which  we  should  recognise. 
Unfortunate  efforts !  What  matter,  provided  they 
are  heroic  ?  Painful  efforts  !  What  matter,  provided 
they  are  passionate  ?  The  true  lover  is  always 
awkward.  Falls,  errors,  new  beginnings,  agonies, 
before  this  supreme  model.  .  .  .  What  matter,  if 
ever3'thing  combines  to  show  how  far  this  model  is 
above  our  attainment  ?  "  The  glory  of  a  great  pic- 
ture is  in  its  shame ;  and  the  charm  of  it,  in  speaking 
the  pleasure  of  a  great  heart,  that  there  is  some- 
thing better  than  picture."  So  long  as  you  do  not 
recognise  this,  the  achievement  is  mediocre,  "you 
have  never  sufficiently  admired  the  work  of  a  great 
workman  if  you  have  not  begun  by  despising  it." 
"The  demand   for  perfection   is   always   a  sign  of  a 


II.  ART  221 

misunderstanding  of  the  ends  of  art.  This  for  two 
reasons,  both  based  upon  everlasting  laws.  The  first, 
that  no  great  man  ever  stops  working  till  he  has 
reached  his  point  of  failure :  The  second  reason  is, 
that  imperfection  is  in  some  sort  essential  to  all  that 
we  know  of  life.  It  is  the  sign  of  life  in  a  mortal 
body,  that  is  to  say,  of  a  state  of  progress  and 
change.  Nothing  that  lives  is,  or  can  be,  rigidly 
perfect ;  part  of  it  is  decaying,  part  nascent.  The 
foxglove  blossom, — a  third  part  bud,  a  third  part 
past,  a  third  part  in  full  bloom, — is  a  type  of  the 
life  of  this  world.  And  in  all  things  that  live  there 
are  certain  irregularities  and  deficiencies  which  are 
not  only  signs  of  life,  but  sources  of  beauty.  No 
human  face  is  exactly  the  same  in  its  lines  on  each 
side,  no  leaf  perfect  in  its  lobes,  no  branch  in  its 
symmetry.  All  admit  irregularity  as  they  imply 
change ;  and  to  banish  imperfection  is  to  destroy 
expression,  to  check  exertion,  to  paralyse  vitality. 
All  things  are  literally  better,  lovelier,  and  more 
beloved  for  the  imperfections  which  have  been 
divinely  appointed,  that  the  law  of  human  life  may 
be  Effort,  and  the  law  of  human  judgment  Mercy." 


Their  exaggerations  and  paradox  notwithstanding, 
no  one  can  say  that  these  are  the  ideas  of  a  moralist. 
They  are  undoubtedly  the  sentiments  of  an  artist, 
and  he  who  has  never  experienced  them  is  no  artist, 


222    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

whatever  his  banner  or  his  motto.  To  forget  one's 
art  for  Nature,  to  forget  oneself  for  art,  is  surely  the 
express  condition  of  all  initiation  into  the  mysteries 
of  the  Beautiful,  and  it  is  also  the  first  condition  of 
success  from  a  practical  point  of  view  in  monumental 
works  of  art.  In  saying  that  "all  art  is  praise," 
humble  and  devoted,  self-sacrifice  and  self-forgetful- 
ness,  the  Master  of  the  Laws  of  Fesole  has  expressed 
something  more  than  a  moral  and  sentimental 
aphorism.  He  has  given  a  precise  rule  which  can 
be  applied  every  day  to  the  most  delicate  aesthetical 
problems  of  our  time.  This  enthusiast  has  seen 
clearly  through  these  modern  sophisms,  and  this 
prophet  has  discerned  under  the  glosses  of  the 
critic  and  in  spite  of  the  interested  theories  of 
artists  the  true  evil,  the  deep  -  seated  evil,  from 
which  certain  of  our  arts  suffer — Vanity.  He  has 
noted  and  proclaimed  that  together  with  the  material 
and  technical  qualities,  without  which  there  is  no 
art, — "  a  painter's  business  is  to  paint,  primarily," 
— a  certain  moral  quality  is  also  essential  for  the 
production  of  a  great  artistic  creation.  He  has 
perceived  that  to  science  it  is  essential  to  add 
conscience,  and  to  cleverness  of  hand  simplicity  of 
heart. 

For  if  cleverness  were  sufficient,  how  is  it  that 
our  nge,  so  fruitful  of  clever  men,  can  produce  no 
monument  to  be  compared  to  the  Greek  temples  or 
the  Gothic  cathedrals  ?  Were  talent  the  only  thing 
required  of  the  artist,  whence  comes  it  that  with  so 


II.  ART  223 

much  talent,  and  the  accumulated  experience  of  so 
man}-  schools,  we  can  neither  create  nor  perpetuate 
a  style,  nor  accomplish  the  harmonious  decoration 
of  a  work,  nor  compete  with  less  educated  and  less 
skilful  ages  in  the  "worth  and  delightfulness  of  our 
implements  of  daily  use  and  materials  of  dress, 
furniture,  and  lodging  ? "  Do  we  not  then  lack 
something  ?  This  something  may  it  not  be  moral 
qualities,  and  chiefly  that  quality  which  produces 
worship:  Humility?  Humility  which  does  not  seek 
rapid  and  noisy  success,  but  follows  slow  and 
silent  research  ;  humility  which  does  not  confine  itself 
exclusively  to  intellectual  and  aristocratic  arts,  nor 
recoil  from  any  necessary  task ;  humility  which  leads 
to  the  union  of  all  artists,  founded  on  the  mutual 
esteem  that  each  has  for  the  work  of  all. 

If  nowadays  we  occasionally  find  beautiful  easel 
pictures,  pretty  statues,  good  pieces  in  a  building,  but 
never  an  entirely  beautiful  decoration  throughout  the 
whole,  it  is  not  technique  or  talent  which  is  lacking ; 
it  is  that,  in  order  to  reach  success  and  above  all 
fortune  more  rapidly,  the  artist  follows  the  artisan 
and  specialises ;  he  directs  all  his  efforts  towards 
attaining  the  highest  virtuosity,  and,  in  his  works, 
the  most  lucrative  subject.  He  avoids  devoting 
himself  to  all  the  arts  for  fear  he  may  not  succeed 
in  any.  "  Under  the  present  system  }-ou  keep 
your  academician  occupied  only  in  producing  tinted 
pieces  of  canvas  to  be  shown  in  frames,  and  smooth 
pieces  of  marble  to  be  placed  in  niches;   while  you 


224    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

expect  your  builder  or  constructor  to  design  coloured 
patterns  in  stone  and  brick,  and  your  chinaware 
merchant  to  keep  a  separate  body  of  workwomen 
who  can  paint  china,  but  nothing  else."  This  sub- 
division of  labour  is,  it  seems,  in  industrial  works 
most  successful  for  rapidity  and  prompt  return,  but 
"it  ruins  all  the  arts  at  once."  It  separates  them  from 
their  sources,  and  the  greatest  efforts  cannot  reunite 
them.  It  creates  parts,  nothing  complete ;  collections, 
never  an  organic  whole.  To  create  true  architecture 
demands  the  whole  power  and  life,  and  that  that  life 
be  given  and  always  sustained  by  one  creator  or 
inspirer. 

This  is  the  law  that  created  the  great  monuments 
that  we  admire  in  Italy.  "  Note  this — that  in  the 
fourteenth-century  group  of  great  artists,  Cimabue, 
Giovanni  Pisano,  Arnolfo,  Andrea  Pisano,  Giotto, 
four  out  of  the  five  men  are  architects  as  well  as 
sculptors  and  painters.  .  .  .  And  the  meaning  of  that 
is  that  in  this  century  the  arts  were  all  united  and 
duly  led  by  architecture  .  .  .  later,  painting  arrogated 
all  and  at  last  betrayed  all.  You  may  justly  conclude 
therefore  that  the  three  arts  ought  to  be  practised 
together,  and  that  no  man  could  be  a  sculptor  who 
was  not  an  architect — that  is  to  say  who  had  not 
knowledge  enough  and  pleasure  enough  in  structural 
law  to  be  able  to  build  on  occasion,  better  than  a 
mere  builder."  And  just  as  all  the  work  can  be  done 
by  the  same  hand,  so  every  beauty  should  be  gathered 
into  the  same  work.     "The  junction  of  the  three  arts 


f^         OF 


II.  ART  225 

in  men's  minds,  at  the  best  time,  is  shortly  signified  - 
in  these  words  of  Chaucer — 

"  Everidele 
Enclosed  was,  and  walled  well 
With  high  walls,  embatailled, 
Portrayed  without,  and  well  entayled 
With  many  rich  portraitures." 

— LovJs  Garden. 

We  can  perceive  the  proof  of  this  unity  of  the  arts 
at  Florence  in  the  campanile  of  Santa  Maria  del  Fiore. 
"  There  are  there  two  rows  of  hexagonal  panels  filled 
with  bas-reliefs.  Some  are  by  unknown  hands,  some 
by  Andrea  di  Pisa,  some  by  Lucca  della  Robbia,  two 
by  Giotto  himself,  and  one  of  these  symbolic  of  the 
whole  art  of  painting  is  represented  by  a  painter  in 
his  bottega.  This  bas-relief  is  one  of  the  foundation 
stones  of  the  most  perfectly  built  tower  in  Europe, 
and  this  stone  was  carved  by  the  hand  of  the  architect 
himself,  and  further  this  architect  and  sculptor,  Giotto, 
was  the  greatest  painter  of  his  time,  and  the  friend  of 
the  greatest  poet." 

The  artist  of  our  own  day,  far  from  being  willing  to 
finish  for  another  the  details  of  a  great  monument 
of  art,  despises  even  completing  his  own.  "The 
modern  system  of  modelling  the  work  in  clay,  getting 
it  into  form  by  machinery,  and  by  the  hands  of  sub- 
ordinates, and  touching  it  at  last,  if  indeed  the  (so 
called)  sculptor  touch  it  at  all,  only  to  correct  their 
inefficiencies,  renders  the  production  of  good  work  in 
marble  a  physical  impossibility.      The  first  result  of 

P 


226    HIS  ^ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

it  is  that  the  sculptor  thinks  in  clay  instead  of  marble, 
and  loses  his  instinctive  sense  of  the  proper  treatment 
of  a  brittle  substance.  The  second  is  that  neither 
he  nor  the  public  recognise  the  touch  of  the  chisel 
as  expressive  of  personal  feeling  or  power,  and  that 
nothing  is  looked  for  except  mechanical  polish." 

In  engraving  the  same  division  of  labour  produces 
the  same  mediocrity  of  labour.  "At  the  bottom  of 
the  pretty  line  engravings  one  saw  always  two  in- 
scriptions. At  the  left-hand  corner,  '  Drawn  by 
so-and-so;'  at  the  right-hand  corner,  'Engraved  by 
so-and-so.'  And  you  will  observe  that  the  only 
engravings  which  bear  imperishable  value  are  en- 
graved by  the  artist  himself.  It  is  true  that,  in 
wood  cutting,  both  Diirer  and  Holbein  have  workmen 
under  them  who  can  do  all  they  want.  But  in  metal 
cutting  it  is  not  so.  For,  as  I  have  told  you,  in  metal 
cutting,  ultimate  perfection  of  Line  has  to  be  reached ; 
and  it  can  be  reached  by  none  but  a  master's  hand  ; 
nor  by  his  unless  in  the  very  moment  and  act  of 
designing.  Never,  unless  under  the  vivid  first  force 
of  imagination  and  intellect,  can  the  line  have  its  full 
value."  ..."  For  it  must  be  done  throughout  with 
the  full  fire  of  temper  in  it,  visibly  governing  its  lines, 
as  the  wind  does  the  fibres  of  cloud." 

But  should  the  great  painter  condescend  to  plaster 
the  walls,  the  sculptor  to  hew  the  marble  himself,  and 
the  engraver  to  engrave  his  own  design  ?  Certainly, 
for  there  is  no  beautiful  mural  decoration,  there  is  no 
beautiful  engraving,  there  is  no  beautiful  statue,  but 


II.  ART  227 

at  that  price.  "  Fine  art  is  essentially  athletic."  It 
is  precisely  here  we  find  what  distinguishes  it  and 
puts  it  above  all  others.  "  Literature,  while  it  gives 
play  to  intellectual  and  emotional  faculties,  does  not 
require  the  physical  organisation  of  the  painter  or 
sculptor,"  nor  Music  either.  A  dwarf  can  write  and 
a  cripple  can  make  music,  but  for  the  severe  labour 
of  a  Michael  Angelo  or  a  Tintoret  we  must  have 
not  only  a  strong  soul  but  a  vigorous  body.  The 
whole  man  must  be  given  to  his  art.  "The  work 
of  the  limbs  and  the  fingers  aiding  the  soul."  "  All 
the  great  arts  form  one  united  system  from  which 
it  is  impossible  to  remove  any  part  without  harm  to 
the  rest.  They  are  founded  first  in  mastery,  by 
strength  of  arm  of  the  earth  and  sea,  in  agriculture 
and  seamanship ;  then  their  inventive  power  begins, 
with  the  clay  in  the  hand  of  the  potter,  whose  art  is 
the  humblest  but  truest  type  of  the  forming  of  the 
human  body  and  spirit ;  and  in  the  carpenter's  work, 
which  probably  was  the  early  employment  of  the 
Founder  of  our  religion." 

"And  man  grows  great  by  this  labour.  Nothing  is 
more  useful  for  developing  the  moral  qualities  of 
uprightness,  patience,  and  simplicity,  than  the  habit  of 
struggling  with  difficult  and  stubborn  matters.  ...  All 
the  great  early  Italian  masters  of  painting  or  sculp- 
ture without  exception  began  by  being  goldsmiths' 
apprentices.  Francia  was  a  goldsmith  ;  Ghirlandajo 
was  a  goldsmith,  and  was  the  master  of  Michael 
Angelo;    Verrochio    was   a   goldsmith,    and    was  the 


228     HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

master  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci ;  Ghiberti  was  a  gold- 
smith, and  beat  out  the  bronze  gates  which  Michael 
Angelo  said  might  serve  for  gates  of  Paradise. 
Several  reasons  may  account  for  the  fact  that  gold- 
smiths' work  is  so  wholesome  for  young  artists : 
first,  that  it  gives  great  firmness  of  hand  to  deal 
for  some  time  with  a  solid  substance  ;  again,  that  it 
induces  caution  and  steadiness — a  boy  trusted  with 
chalk  and  paper  suffers  an  immediate  temptation  to 
scrawl  upon  it  and  play  with  it,  but  he  dares  not 
scrawl  on  gold,  and  he  cannot  play  with  it ;  and 
lastly,  that  it  gives  great  delicacy  and  precision  of 
touch  to  work  upon  minute  forms."  "  All  arts 
needing  energy  and  physical  application  are  equally 
good.     Every  artist  should  be  a  workman." 

But  at  the  same  time  to  re-establish  the  equilibrium 
every  workman  should  be  an  artist.  It  does  not 
suffice  for  the  thinker  to  work,  the  worker  must 
also  think.  It  matters  little  that,  distracted  some- 
times by  his  thought,  he  forgets  the  mechanical 
regularity  of  his  task,  and  that  his  fancy  attempts 
to  form  an  original  but  living  work  rather  than 
a  work  slavishly  following  the  given  pattern.  "  I 
shall  only  give  one  example,  which  however  will 
show  the  reader  what  I  mean,  from  the  manufac- 
ture already  alluded  to,  that  of  glass.  Our  modern 
glass  is  exquisitely  clear  in  its  substance,  true  in  its 
form,  accurate  in  its  cutting.  We  are  proud  of  this. 
We  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  it.  The  old  Venice 
glass  was   muddy,  inaccurate   in    all   its   forms,    and 


II.  ART  229 

clumsily  cut,  if  at  all.  And  the  old  Venetian  was 
iustly  proud  of  it.  For  there  is  this  difference  between 
the  English  and  Venetian  workman,  that  the  former 
thinks  only  of  accurately  matching  his  patterns,  and 
getting  his  curves  perfectly  true  and  his  edges 
perfectly  sharp,  and  becomes  a  mere  machine  for 
rounding  curves  and  sharpening  edges ;  while  the 
old  Venetian  cared  not  a  whit  whether  his  edges 
were  sharp  or  not,  but  he  invented  a  new  design 
for  every  glass  that  he  made,  and  never  moulded  a 
handle  or  a  lip  without  a  new  fancy  in  it.  And 
therefore,  though  some  Venetian  glass  is  ugly  and 
clumsy  enough  when  made  by  clumsy  and  unin- 
ventive  workmen,  other  Venetian  glass  is  so  lovely 
in  its  forms  that  no  price  is  too  great  for  it ;  and 
we  never  see  the  same  form  in  it  twice.  Now 
you  cannot  have  the  finish  and  the  varied  form  too. 
If  the  workman  is  thinking  about  his  edges,  he 
cannot  be  thinking  of  his  design ;  if  of  his  design, 
he  cannot  think  of  his  edges.  Choose  whether  you 
will  pay  for  the  lovely  form  or  the  perfect  finish, 
and  choose  at  the  same  moment  whether  you  will 
make  the  worker  a  man  or  a  grindstone.  .   .  . 

"  Nay,  but  the  reader  interrupts  me, — '  If  the  work- 
man can  design  beautifully,  I  would  not  have  him 
kept  at  the  furnace.  Let  him  be  taken  away  and 
made  a  gentleman,  and  have  a  studio,  and  design 
his  glass  there,  and  I  will  have  it  blown  and  cut 
for  him  by  common  workmen,  and  so  I  will  have 
my  design  and  my  finish  too.' 


230    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

"All  ideas  of  this  kind  are  founded  upon  two  mis- 
taken suppositions :  the  first,  that  one  man's  thoughts 
can  be,  or  ought  to  be,  executed  by  another  man's 
hands;  the  second,  that  manual  labour  is  a  degrada- 
tion, when  it  is  governed  by  intellect." 

Rather  it  is  a  necessity.  The  artisan  must  have 
no  ambition  mechanically  to  perform  an  artistic  trade, 
but  artistically  to  follow  his  trade  of  artisan.  Great 
decorative  and  great  popular  art  can  only  be  ob- 
tained at  this  price.  And  if  nowadays  we  do  not 
find  among  the  cabinetmakers,  masons,  jewellers, 
blacksmiths,  the  marvellous  craftsmen  of  the  centuries 
of  great  art,  it  is  not  that  the  craftsmen  do  not 
exist,  but  that  they  have  lost  the  sense  of  their  true 
mission.  They  are  no  longer  where  they  ought  to 
be — the  desire  of  raising  themselves  on  the  social 
ladder  has  made  them  leave  the  modest  workshop 
where  they  would  have  created  marvels,  and  has 
given  them  over  to  the  plush  and  bric-a-brac  of 
Kensington  hotels,  or  to  rows  of  villas  where  they 
only  fabricate  rubbish.  Schools  of  painting  and  of 
sculpture  without  end  have  multiplied  a  hundredfold 
people  making  art  into  a  profession.  We  shall  no 
longer  find  in  the  pastures  of  Europe  a  Giotto  taking 
care  of  sheep  and  goats,  and  it  is  hardly  probable, 
with  the  fall  in  the  price  of  paper,  that  any  mute 
Miltons  will  lie  inglorious  in  a  village  cemetery.  But 
these  schools  of  which  we  are  so  proud,  while  they 
give  ambition  do  not  give  genius.  They  have  only 
skimmed  off,  with  no  profit  to  painting  or  sculpture, 


II.  ART  231 

the  best  artisans  who  might  have  intelligently  deco- 
rated the  base  or  carved  the  capital  of  a  column. 
The  cabinetmaker  who  with  a  sure  hand  might  have 
composed  and  executed  a  reredos  of  beautiful  design 
becomes  an  architect  and  constructs  absurd  exhibition 
buildings.  The  plasterer  with  the  exact  eye,  who 
might  have  decorated  ceilings  and  vaultings  with 
right  tones  and  harmonious  decoration,  becomes  a 
painter,  and  exhausts  himself  fruitlessly  in  historical 
pictures.  The  whole  democracy  of  working  men 
aspire  to  become  artists,  till  no  artist  is  to  be  found 
among  workmen;  nothing  but  machines  remain.  It 
is  a  loss  all  round ;  great  art  is  lowered ;  art  in 
furniture  does  not  improve,  and  the  ambitious  man 
who  vegetates  or  dies  of  hunger  among  his  unsold 
allegories  and  Venuses,  with  his  divans  and  his 
marbles,  would  have  been  rich  and  prosperous  as  a 
cabinetmaker.  Here  too  it  is  not  intellectual  power, 
it  is  not  ambition  or  ideal  that  art  demands,  it  is 
the  solemn  feeling  produced  by  the  unselfish  admira- 
tion of  Nature  : — Humility. 

The  device  of  the  artist  then  should  be  quite  simple, 
and  we  find  the  whole  of  it  in  this  saying  that  we 
cited  at  the  beginning  of  our  inquiry :  "  All  great  Art 
is  Praise." 

To  seek  Nature  the  tru^.nnt  what  w/*  have  made 
her,  but  what  she  is  herself;  to  observe  her  with  eyes 
that  have  been  given  us  that  we  may  see  her,  not  with 
the  instruments  that  have  been  made  to  betray  her, 
and  with  the  heart  given  us  to  feel  her,  not  with  the 


> 


y 


. 


232    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

reason  we  have  perfected  in  order  to  understand  her ; 
to  observe  her  in  the  fields,  and  not  in  our  workshops, 
with  her  own  lights  and  not  with  our  chiaroscuro  ; 
to  follow  her  in  the  repose  of  her  vigorous  outline 
and  not  in  our  vain  agitations,  in  her  harmony  and 
not  in  our  adjustment,  to  love  her  for  herself  and  not 
for  ourselves,  and  if  need  be  to  set  ourselves  to  the 
most  humble  manual  toil  to  express  her  better  or  to 
make  her  more  admired — all  Art  is  in  this.  Therefore 
no  more  rules,  no  more  receipts,  entire  freedom  and 
God  be  with  you. 

"Go  forth  again  to  gaze  upon  the  old  cathedral 
front,  where  you  have  smiled  so  often  at  the  fantastic 
ignorance  of  the  old  sculptors :  examine  once  more 
those  ugly  goblins,  and  formless  monsters,  and  stern 
statues,  anatomiless  and  rigid ;  but  do  not  mock  at 
them,  for  they  are  signs  of  the  life  and  liberty  of 
every  workman  who  struck  the  stone;  a  freedom  of 
thought,  and  rank  in  scale  of  being,  such  as  no  laws, 
no  charters,  no  charities  can  secure ;  but  which  it 
must  be  the  first  aim  of  all  Europe  at  this  day  to 
regain  for  her  children." 

Art  lives  by  praise  of  Nature  but  it  dies  of  slavery 
to  men.  "The  only  doctrine  or  system  peculiar  to 
me,"  says  Ruskin  in  Saint  Mark's  Rest,  "  is  the  abhor- 
rence of  all  that  is  doctrinal  instead  of  demonstrable, 
and  of  all  that  is  systematic  instead  of  useful :  so  that 
no  true  disciple  of  mine  will  ever  be  a  '  Ruskinian ' — 
he  will  follow,  not  me,  but  the  instincts  of  his  own 
soul,  and  the  guidance  of  his  Creator."     "  For,  indeed, 


II.  ART  233 

the  arts,  as  regards  teachableness,  differ  from  the 
sciences  also  in  this,  that  their  power  is  founded  not 
merely  on  facts  which  can  be  communicated,  but 
on  dispositions  which  require  to  be  created.  Art  is 
neither  to  be  achieved  by  effort  of  thinking,  nor  ex- 
plained by  accuracy  of  speaking."  "  No  true  painter 
ever  speaks  or  ever  has  spoken  much  of  his  art.  .  .  . 
The  moment  a  man  can  really  do  his  work  he  be- 
comes speechless  about  it.  All  words  become  idle 
to  him — all  theories.  .  .  .  Does  a  bird  need  to  theorise 
about  building  his  nest — or  boast  of  it  when  built  ?  " 
Have  the  great  artists  ever  had  the  occult  or  meta- 
physical motives,  which  their  critics  assign  to  them, 
at  the  moment  they  found  the  controlling  line  of  a 
gesture,  a  happy  harmony  of  tones,  or  the  unexpected 
arrangement  of  a  whole  ?  No.  A  thousand  times 
No.  "  They  did  it  I  think  with  the  childlike  unpre- 
tending simplicity  of  all  earnest  men  :  they  did  what 
they  loved  and  felt."  And  it  is  precisely  "because 
they  did  so  that  there  is  this  marvellous  life  of 
changefulness  and  subtlety  running  through  their 
every  arrangement  :  and  that  we  reason  upon  the 
lovely  building  as  we  should  upon  some  fair  growth 
of  the  trees  of  the  earth  that  know  not  their  own 
beauty." 

Here  then  is  the  thought  of  the  Master  who  has 
so  often  been  accused  of  wishing  to  order  painting  by 
moral  laws  and  of  making  verses  of  the  Bible  serve 
for  the  grammar  of  the  art  of  drawing.  And  after 
the  most  minute  researches  that  have  ever  been  made 


234    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

into  the  mysteries  of  composition,  after  probings  as 
profound  as  have  ever  been  attempted  by  the 
Poussins,  Reynolds,  Gerard  de  Lairesse,  Lessing, 
Stendhal,  Topffer,  Winckelmann,  or  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  doubtless  after  many  errors,  as  well  as  many 
penetrating  observations,  the  great  oestheticist  owns 
with  melancholy :  "  I  have  now  stated  to  you  all  the 
laws  of  composition  which  occur  to  me  as  capable  of 
being  illustrated  or  defined;  but  there  are  multitudes 
of  others  which,  in  the  present  state  of  my  know- 
ledge, I  cannot  define,  and  others  which  I  never 
hope  to  define ;  and  these  the  most  important,  and 
connected  with  the  deepest  powers  of  the  art.  The 
best  part  of  every  great  work  is  always  inexplicable  ; 
it  is  good  because  it  is  good :  and  innocently  gracious, 
opening  as  the  green  of  the  earth,  or  falling  as 
the  dew  of  heaven." 

We  may  smile  at  this  confession.  We  ought 
rather  to  admire  it  as  we  reflect  how  powerless 
reason  is  compared  to  our  instinct.  It  may  be  said 
that  it  is  superfluous  to  pile  up  so  many  books 
under  our  feet,  only  to  raise  our  eyes  to  the  edge  of 
the  wall  which  surrounds  the  terra  incognita  of  the 
Beautiful.  We  ourselves  would  rather  say  this  labour 
is  necessary  if  we  are  to  appreciate  and  affirm  that 
there  is  in  art  a  terra  incognita  where  presumptuous 
geographists  by  means  of  ill-drawn  maps  may  mislead 
and  lose  credulous  travellers — and  morever  that  man 
raises  himself  perhaps  higher  by  the  sentiment  he 
has  for  what  cannot  be  known  than  by  the  science 


II.  ART  235 

he  believes  himself  to  have  of  the  unknown.  It 
might  be  said  that  here  the  failure  of  ^Esthetic  lies 
and  also  the  condemnation  of  the  philosopher  who 
discussed  it;  but  we  would  rather  say  it  proves  that 
this  philosopher  was  an  artist,  and  that  he  was 
greater  as  artist  than  as  philosopher,  since  he  grasped 
more  things  intuitively  through  enthusiasm  than  he 
was  able  to  explain  inductively  by  his  science. 


CHAPTER  III 

"  LIFE  " 


"THE  art  is  an  exact  exponent  of  the  life."  It  is 
agreed  that  true  art  is  to  reproduce  only  beautiful 
bodies,  and  only  beautiful  landscapes,  that  is  to  say, 
such  as  are  untouched  by  man.  But  if  men  and 
Nature  are  no  longer  beautiful  ?  .  .  .  And  if  it  can 
be  achieved  only  by  simple,  modest  and  devoted 
artists,  and  if  simple,  modest,  devoted  artists  are 
no  longer  to  be  found  ?  .  .  .  Where  are  the  models 
for  such  works,  and  above  all  where  are  the  work- 
men ?  Where  are  the  forms  wherein  Beauty  dwells, 
and  where  are  the  souls  who  sacrifice  themselves  for 
her?  Where  is  the  great  national  idea,  where  the 
joyous  ceremonies  of  public  life,  which  supply  the  op- 
portunity for  achievements  springing  from  the  heart 
of  the  people  like  the  cathedrals  of  olden  days  ? 
Above  all,  where  are  the  bonds  of  common  aesthetical 
interest  which  should  cause  the  multitude  of  artists 
and  workmen  to  forget  the  differences  in  their  sta- 
tions and  so   to   assist   each   other  in   realising   the 

design  ?     We  see   at   once  how  Ruskin's  aesthetical 

236 


III.  LIFE  237 

idea  became  a  moral  and  social  idea,  and  why  since  the 
middle  of  his  career  in  i860,  he  thinks  it  no  longer 
possible  to  recover  art-power  without  the  reform  and 
purification  of  social  life. 

Truly,  however  high  a  conception  we  may  have  of 
modern  life,  however  high  an  idea  we  may  have  of 
its  conquests  and  of  its  progress,  on  one  point  at  any 
rate  this  progress  is  not  easy  to  discover,  for  our 
country  has  not  in  any  sense  added  to  human 
patrimony  in  respect  of  Beauty.  Day  by  day  the 
picturesqueness  of  our  houses,  of  our  dress,  of  our 
festivals,  of  our  fields,  of  our  implements,  even  of  our 
arms,  disappears  from  life  and  is  to  be  found  only 
in  the  fictions  of  theatres  or  in  the  restorations 
of  museums.  The  railways  carry  us  quicker  than 
formerly  to  favoured  portions  of  the  globe,  but  these 
are  already  disfigured  by  rails  and  tunnels  before  we 
arrive  there.  They  convey  us  in  a  few  hours  to  old 
and  distant  provinces  that  we  may  enjoy  their  kindly 
habits  and  traditional  costumes,  but  they  carry  still 
more  quickly  newspapers  to  put  these  customs  to 
flight,  and  Paris  fashions  to  replace  the  national  dress. 
The  numerous  hotels  built  upon  "sites  "  whose  charm 
lay  in  their  wildness,  enable  us  indeed  to  live  com- 
fortably among  the  rocks  and  the  forests,  but  in  order 
to  erect  them  the  rocks  have  been  blasted,  and  in 
order  to  supply  material  the  forests  have  been  cleared. 
Each  new  line  of  railway  worn  like  a  wrinkle  into  the 
face  of  the  country  detracts  something  from  its  beauty. 
Old    picturesque    towns    disappear   stone    by   stone, 


238  HIS  AESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 
rivers  are  dammed  up  and  polluted  wave  by  wave. 
Those  among  us  who  live  by  the  pleasure  of  the  eye, 
who  derive  their  highest  enjoyment  from  line  and 
colour,  are  day  by  day  deprived  of  the  sights  which 
delighted  their  fathers, — and  are  forced  into  exile 
hoping  to  find  at  a  distance  those  rare  cities  and 
colonies  not  yet  laid  out  in  imitation  boulevards, 
with  the  usual  accompaniment  of  shops  and  black- 
coated  uniformity.  .  .  .  Can  Beauty  exist  in  art  when 
it  no  longer  exists  in  life  ?  .  .  . 

Maybe  so :  the  professors  and  the  economists  will 
say,  but  there  is  wealth.  We  must  live  before  we 
philosophise.  What  matter  that  sundry  effeminate 
dilettanti  or  certain  idle  dreamers  regret  these  odd 
aesthetical  pleasures  which  for  our  part  we  have 
never  desired  or  experienced,  if  the  well-being  of  the 
masses  is  increased  and  the  people  are  happier  for 
the  industrial  and  economic  regime  which  science  has 
inaugurated  ? 

The  people  ?  Let  us  look  at  this  side  of  the 
subject.  They  are  advancing  with  threats  and  griev- 
ances to  the  attack  of  modern  society  armed  with 
heavier  claims  than  were  ever  put  forward  in  the 
ancient  world.  Day  by  day  the  tide-mark  of  crime 
rises  like  a  flood  of  blood.  Day  by  day  the  number 
of  suicides  grows  in  the  columns  of  the  newspapers 
and  should  be  writ  in  letters  of  red,  and — until  now 
unheard  of — even  the  suicide  of  children.  .  .  .  Day 
by  day  in  some  portion  of  the  civilised  globe  we  hear 
of  workmen    in    revolt    who    destroy    the    wonderful 


III.  LIFE  239 

and  fragile  machinery  which  science  has  invented  for 
their  happiness.  "  Our  cities  are  a  wilderness  of 
spinning-wheels  instead  of  palaces;  yet  the  people 
have  not  clothes.  We  have  blackened  every  leaf  of 
English  greenwood  with  ashes,  and  the  people  die 
of  cold ;  our  harbours  are  a  forest  of  merchant  ships, 
and  the  people  die  of  hunger.  .  .  ."  The  picturesque 
monuments  of  the  Middle  Ages  are  overthrown,  even 
to  the  ramparts  of  the  towns  which  until  now  formed 
a  distant  picture  for  the  eye  of  the  traveller,  but 
has  anything  been  given  to  the  people  in  exchange  ? 
Have  these  stones  been  made  bread  ?  The  trees  of 
the  forest  have  been  cut  to  build  workshops,  and  in- 
stead of  the  songs  of  birds  the  whistle  and  roar  of  the 
steam  engine  meet  the  ear.  But  are  the  workmen 
the  happier  ?  Do  they  sing  the  more  ?  Alas,  no. 
Formerly  the  poor  in  France  were  always  singing : 
they  sang  at  table,  they  sang  at  work.  In  these 
days  France  grown  wealthy  is  like  the  rich  cobbler 
of  the  fable — he  sings  no  longer.  The  promises  of 
the  Manchester  school  then  have  deceived  the  world, 
or  at  least  it  thinks  itself  deceived,  which  is  the 
same  thing,  for  nothing  is  so  subjective  as  the 
feeling  of  happiness.  It  is  possible,  nay  probable, 
that  all  the  socialistic  theories  which  promise  yet 
greater  things  will  be  followed  by  }xt  deeper  and 
more  bitter  disenchantment,  but  this  we  need  not 
consider.  The  professors  and  the  economists,  the 
men  of  progress,  promised  the  masses  when  they 
deprived    them    of    traditions,    costumes,    faith,    and 


240    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

Beauty,  that  they  would  give  them  happiness.  Is 
this  the  result  ? 

Reply  is  unnecessary.  The  cry  of  the  rising 
generation  replies  for  us.  As  soon  as  we  grasp  in 
the  name  of  progress  what  the  professors  and  the 
economists  promised  the  people,  we  perceive  that 
Happiness  is  not  one  of  the  things  "  qua>  numcro, 
pondere,  mensurave  constant" ;  but  a  divine  coinage 
which  we  long  ago  dissipated,  throwing  the  divine 
chimaerse  to  the  winds.  .  .  .  Here  is  the  cruel,  evident, 
undeniable  barrier ;  for  though  it  may  be  demonstrated 
by  the  aid  of  ingenious  and  consoling  statistics  that 
the  workman  and  the  peasant  of  to-day  are  richer 
than  the  workman  and  the  peasant  of  the  good  old 
times,  can  it  be  proved  to  him  that  he  is  happier 
when  he  feels  the  reverse  ? 

In  short,  it  is  vain  to  hope  that  the  murmurs  of 
the  artist  against  the  devastation  of  modern  progress 
can  be  drowned  by  the  cheers  of  the  artisan  over 
its  benefits.  From  below  as  from  above  the  same 
reproach  echoes.  What  have  you  done  with  Beauty  ? 
say  the  one  side.  And  the  other — What  have  you 
done  with  Happiness  ?  Has  this  progress  given  a 
higher  ideal  ?  asks  the  first, — and  the  second :  Has 
it  lightened  the  burden  of  existence  ?  Wonders  in- 
deed from  graceless  laboratories  and  factories  have 
been  exhibited  in  1889  and  will  be  exhibited  again 
in  1900,  and  the  envy  of  the  poor  who  pass  in  front 
of  these  marvels  will  be  excited ; — but  will  their  lot 
seem  thereby  more  fortunate  ?     It  is  announced  that 


III.   LIFE  241 

scenes  of  the  French  Revolution  are  to  be  repre- 
sented in  gigantic  proportions  among  clouds.  The 
clouds  will  be  disfigured,  but  will  the  crowds  below 
be  more  beautiful  ?  We  boast  that  rapidity  of  loco- 
motion will  be  increased  tenfold ;  the  sorrows  that  we 
carry  with  us  will  only  gallop  the  faster.  It  used  to 
be  said : — 

"  Chagrin  d'amour  ne  va  pas  en  voyage, 
Chagrin  d'amour  ne  va  pas  en  bateau." 

What  are  the  sorrows  which  do  not  now  go  every- 
where with  man  ?  And  the  more  the  difficulties  of 
travel  are  minimised,  the  more  the  soul  is  left  without 
resource  to  its  private  griefs.  If  every  village  on  the 
globe  were  enclosed  in  a  network  of  telephonic  wire, 
would  the  news  communicated  be  better  news  ?  If 
every  road  were  furrowed  by  those  horseless  carriages 
still  rare  enough  to  attract  people  in  the  street,  would 
that  make  them  better  worth  looking  at,  or  the  land- 
scape more  beautiful  for  the  passengers  ?  However 
quickly  they  may  go,  will  they  ever  reach  another 
goal  than  that  which  all  must  reach  one  da}-,  horse- 
men, pilgrims,  monks,  and  cripples,  that  represented 
in  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa  ?  And  is  there  any 
advantage  in  hurrying  towards  this  end,  inevitable 
alas,  and  common  to  all  ?  .  .  . 

But  since  in  the  same  hour  the  happiness  of  man 
and  the  loveliness  of  nature  are  seen  to  vanish  ;  since 
the  same  storm  silences  the  singing  of  birds  and 
men,   does  it  not   follow   that  from   the   same   causes 

Q 


242    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

also  arise  the  lack  of  social  ease  and  aesthetic 
joys  ?  Shall  we  then  marvel  greatly  if  Ruskin 
dreamed  that  in  restoring  Beauty  to  the  world — 
Beauty  in  Nature — Beauty  in  the  human  form — 
Beauty  in  the  human  soul — he  would  by  so  doing 
restore  Happiness  ? 


Now  the  leprosy  which  corrodes  and  destroys 
beauty  in  the  landscape  we  love  is  due  to  machinery 
and  speculation,  in  other  words,  simply  to  wealth.  .  .  . 
A  rich  country  is  an  ugly  country.  Ruskin  relates 
that  he  once  knew  a  small  piece  of  land  at  the  sources 
of  the  Wandle  which  he  esteemed  the  most  delicious 
landscape  in  the  south  of  England.  He  tells  us 
"  that  no  clearer  or  diviner  waters  ever  sang  with 
constant  lips,"  that  "  no  pastures  ever  lightened  in 
springtime  with  more  passionate  blossoming,"  that 
"  no  sweeter  homes  ever  hallowed  the  heart  of  the 
passer-by  with  their  pride  of  peaceful  gladness — fain 
hidden,  yet  full  confessed.  .  .  ."  Twenty  years  after- 
wards he  returned  to  the  sources  of  the  Wandle. 
All  was  changed.  .  .  .  "Just  where  the  welling  of 
stainless  water,  trembling  and  pure,  like  a  body 
of  light,  enters  the  pool  of  Carshalton,  cutting  itself 
a  radiant  channel  down  to  the  gravel,  through  warp 
of  feathery  weeds,  all  waving,  which  it  traverses  with 
its  deep  threads  of  clearness,  like  the  chalcedony 
in  moss-agate,  starred  here  and  there  with  the  white 


III.    LIFE  243 

grenouillette ;  just  in  the  very  rush  and  murmur  of 
the  first  spreading  currents,  the  human  wretches 
of  the  place  cast  their  street  and  house  foulness ; 
heaps  of  dust  and  slime,  and  broken  shreds  of  old 
metal,  and  rags  of  putrid  clothes ;  which,  having 
neither  energy  to  cart  away,  nor  decency  enough 
to  dig  into  the  ground,  they  thus  shed  into  the 
stream,  to  diffuse  what  venom  of  it  will  float  and 
melt,  far  away,  in  all  places  where  God  meant 
those  waters  to  bring  joy  and  health.  Half-a-dozen 
men,  with  one  day's  work,  could  cleanse  those  pools, 
and  trim  the  flowers  about  their  banks,  and  make 
every  breath  of  summer  air  above  them  rich  with 
cool  balm ;  and  ever}'  glittering  wave  medicine,  as  if 
it  ran,  troubled  only  of  angels,  from  the  porch  of 
Bethesda.  But  that  day's  work  is  never  given,  nor, 
I  suppose,  will  be ;  nor  will  any  joy  be  possible  to 
heart  of  man,  for  evermore,  about  those  wells  of 
English  waters." 

Afterwards  he  walked  slowly  up  through  the 
village  to  the  principal  street,  asking  himself  whether 
poverty  was  the  cause  of  this  culpable  neglect  of 
natural  things.  No.  He  found  on  the  contrary 
signs  of  luxury  everywhere,  magnificent  shop-win- 
dows, sumptuous  public-houses,  but  neither  greater 
happiness  nor  health  among  the  inhabitants,  only 
more  pretension  and  useless  parade  of  high  iron  rail- 
ings everywhere.  "  Now,  how  did  it  come  to  pass 
that  this  work  was  done  instead  of  the  other :  that 
the  strength  and  life  of  the   English   operative  were 


244    HIS  ^ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

spent  in  defiling  ground,  instead  of  redeeming  it : 
and  in  producing  an  entirely  (in  that  place)  valueless 
piece  of  metal,  which  can  neither  be  eaten  nor 
breathed,  instead  of  medicinal  fresh  air  and  pure 
water  ?  There  is  but  one  reason  for  it,  and  at 
present  a  conclusive  one, —  that  the  capitalist  can 
charge  percentage  on  the  work  in  the  one  case,  and 
cannot  in  the  other." 

If  the  economists  deigned  to  make  any  reply  they 
would  certainly  say  that  the  capitalist  system  of  the 
day,  however  despised  by  visionaries,  is  none  the 
less  the  best  hitherto  discovered.  They  would  admit 
that  in  developing  industrial  progress  the  principles 
of  the  Manchester  school  had  not  perhaps  added 
much  to  the  poetry  of  the  world,  but  that  was  not 
the  object  in  view,  and  assuredly  they  had  added  to 
its  riches.  They  would  maintain  that  to  lead  a 
crusade  against  capitalism  because  it  entails  factories, 
mines,  and  railroads  does  homage  to  it  from  the 
economic  point  of  view,  and  that  to  demand  its 
destruction  is  to  demand  at  the  same  time  the  de- 
struction of  everything  which  makes  the  wealth  of 
the  proletariat  as  well  as  that  of  the  capitalists,  of 
nations  as  well  as  of  individuals. 

For  that  matter,  given  their  conception  of  wealth, 
economists  are  right,  but  it  never  even  occurs  to 
them  that  this  conception  could  be  disputed.  In  an 
age  when  everything  is  doubted,  they  never  for  an 
instant  suppose  it  could  be  questioned  whether  wealth 
were  an  essential,  and  whether  accumulated  money 


III.  LIFE  245 

and  nothing  else  were  truly  wealth.  It  is  quite  true 
that  for  making  money  the  present  economic  system 
is  the  best.  The  colossal  fortunes  amassed  in  the 
present  age^  prove  it  abundantly.  It  is  even  quite 
possible — whatever  the  socialists  may  say — that  this 
system,  in  spite  of  its  defects,  is  productive  of  the 
greatest  pecuniary  gain  to  the  masses,  and  that  pre- 
cisely in  those  countries  where  the  pinnacles  of 
fortune  have  been  lifted  highest  by  speculation,  the 
average  of  modest  fortunes  also  rises.  Granting  all 
this,  it  remains  to  be  proved  whether  the  acquisition 
of  wealth  is  a  real  gain  in  all  circumstances — even 
when  it  involves  the  loss  of  life — and  whether  true 
wealth  consists  in  the  possession  of  gold,  or  can  be 
procured  by  it.  We  should  say  so,  looking  at  the 
business  world,  and  the  fever  of  speculation  by  which 
it  is  impelled,  at  the  merchant  in  his  office,  and  at 
the  artisan  on  his  way  to  the  factory.  He  grudges 
nothing,  care,  fatigue,  journeys,  struggles,  bad  dreams, 
by  day  and  night,  all  to  gain  one  object  —  money. 
He  does  not  think  what  he  will  do  with  this  money, 
or  he  only  thinks  later  on  :  his  passion  is  to  possess 
it,  not  necessarily  as  a  mercenary  man,  but  merely 
as  a  man  of  business  according  to  the  economical 
notions  of  our  fathers.  To  make  as  much  money 
as  possible  is  in  itself  a  final  end,  as  admirable 
and  as  essential  as  it  is  in  cricket  to  make  runs. 
He  does  not  read  :  he  has  no  time,  because  he 
has  to  amass  more  money.  He  cannot  see  the 
blossoming    flowers    of    spring    in    a    landscape    he 


246     HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

loves :  he  must  make  yet  more  money.  Later,  much 
later,  when  he  is  very  rich  and  very  old,  and  when 
he  has  ruined  ten  rivals,  and  triumphed  over  ten 
strikes,  these  riches  will  procure  him  all  that  Nature 
can  yield  of  flowers,  all  that  Art  can  bestow  of 
harmony,  all  that  thought  can  grant  of  true  joy, — 
were  he  still  able  to  appreciate  them.  .  .  .  But  he 
will  never  reach  this  second  stage :  to  procure  every 
luxury  of  existence  he  ruins  his  health  :  to  secure 
all  the  joys  of  the  spirit  he  destroys  his  soul :  and 
what  this  millionaire  is  pleased  to  call  gaining  his 
livelihood  is  in  reality  with  great  trouble  and  fatigue 
earning  old  age  and  death. 

But  this  life,  this  health,  these  aesthetical  pleasures, 
which  he  has  sacrificed  in  pursuit  of  riches,  are  they 
not  also  wealth  ?  And  if  money  is  an  essential,  is 
it  not  also  needful  for  its  proper  use  to  have  living 
hands,  and  for  the  enjoyment  of  life,  is  it  not  indis- 
pensable to  possess  life  ?  "  At  the  crossing  of  the 
transepts  of  Milan  Cathedral  has  lain,  for  three  hun- 
dred years,  the  embalmed  body  of  St.  Carlo  Borro- 
meo.  It  holds  a  golden  crosier,  and  has  a  cross  of 
emeralds  on  its  breast.  Admitting  the  crosier  and 
emeralds  to  be  useful  articles,  is  the  body  to  be  con- 
sidered as  'having'  them?  Do  they,  in  the  politico- 
economical  sense  of  property  (Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill's, 
for  instance)  belong  to  it  ?  If  not,  and  if  we  may, 
therefore,  conclude  generally  that  a  dead  body  cannot 
possess  property,  what  degree  and  period  of  animation 
in   the   body  will  render  possession    possible  ? "     Is 


III.  LIFE  247 

it  not  enough  to  be  physically  dead,  extended  on 
an  altar  tomb  with  a  sculptured  dog  at  one's  feet, 
like  the  lords  and  ladies  of  the  fifteenth  century? 
Has  he  any  enjoyment  of  wealth,  though  he  still 
breathe,  when,  crushed  by  the  care  and  pleasures 
of  money,  he  is  extended  on  a  couch  with  a  living 
dog  asleep  at  his  feet  ?  Surely  not.  To  enjoy 
wealth  a  man  must  be  erect  and  standing,  and  the 
dog  too  should  be  barking  gaily  in  the  thicket  amid 
the  flying  birds,  or  among  the  flowing  waters  in  the 
meadows. 

We  shall  find  then  on  reflection  that  health  is  the 
first  of  all  riches.  Now  do  money  and  the  pleasures 
of  money  endow  us  with  health  ?  For  health  we 
must  have  pure  water.  The  factory  makes  money 
but  it  poisons  the  streams  around,  till  the  manu- 
facturer finds  no  natural  water  to  drink.  Is  that 
wealth  ?  But  money  enables  our  hands  to  remain 
idle,  and  our  body  to  avoid  all  muscular  toil.  This  is 
the  great  modern  progress.  True,  but  at  the  end  of 
a  few  years  the  body,  exhausted  by  cerebral  action, 
becomes  diseased,  and  the  doctors  prescribe  in  the 
name  of  hygiene  that  active  exercise  from  which  the 
engineers  in  the  name  of  progress  have  triumphantly 
rescued  man.  Is  this  exhaustion  wealth  ?  More- 
over, if  there  are  no  longer  forests  into  which  we 
can  follow  the  birds,  nor  meadows  where  we  can 
admire  the  flowers,  what  is  the  use  of  health  ? 
Natural  beauty  is  destroyed  in  the  pursuit  of  riches 
— it   is   preserved    only   in    certain   privileged    parks. 


248     HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

What  shall  avail  this  beauty  if  man  does  not  culti- 
vate within  him  that  enthusiastic  spirit  which  can 
appreciate  all  its  grace  and  be  responsive  to  all 
its  energies  ?  Does  the  rich  man  possess  this 
enthusiasm  ?  No.  It  is  a  great  error  of  the 
age  to  think  that  any  one  absorbed  in  money- 
making,  who  in  the  interval  between  two  coups  goes 
luxuriously  to  listen  to  the  Opera,  can  hear  any- 
thing. .  .  .  He  hears  nothing.  It  is  a  great  error 
to  think  that  the  collector  appreciates  the  beauty  of 
the  works  of  the  Master  when  he  has  only  to  hold 
out  his  hand  to  procure  them.  .  .  .  He  does  not  see 
them.  The  one  hears  only  the  sound  of  gold  jingling 
on  the  international  counter,  or  maybe  the  groans  of 
the  crowd  ruined  by  his  lucky  speculation.  The  other 
perceives  in  the  cloudscape  of  his  pictures  only  the 
white  of  the  bank-notes  he  gave  for  them,  and  his  eyes 
scrutinise  the  corner  of  the  canvas,  as  if  it  were  a 
cheque,  for  the  signature  which  makes  it  of  value. 
"  It  is  not  by  paying  for  them  but  by  understanding 
them  that  we  become  the  real  possessors  of  works 
of  art  and  of  the  enjoyment  they  give.  It  is  not  by 
opening  our  purse,  but  by  opening  our  hearts,  and 
for  this  we  must  have  hearts  to  open.  Money  can- 
not procure  the  pleasures  belonging  to  true  wealth, 
only  love." 

Lastly,  do  we  by  accumulating  gold  obtain  truer 
friends,  more  real  sympathy,  franker  greetings,  more 
enduring  affections.  Can  gold  give  serenity  of  heart 
and    soul,    and    that   peace    which    sheds   a   brighter 


III.  LIFE  249 

glow  upon  our  lives  ?  It  would  be  absurd  to  say 
so.  Money,  while  it  seems  to  gather  round  the 
rich  man  more  friends,  sows  the  seed  of  doubt  in 
friendship,  and  the  hands  offered  to  him  in  greeting 
are  as  the  hands  of  statues — waiting  to  receive — 
cold  hands  of  stone,  unable  to  sustain  or  bestow. 
But  peace  and  gladness,  everything  that  renders  life 
more  beautiful,  are  these  not  riches  to  be  desired 
next  after  our  daily  bread  ?  "  The  economists  seem 
to  have  a  misgiving  that  there  is  other  wealth  than 
the  gold  found  in  Australia,  since  they  speak  of  all 
'  useful  articles '  and  proclaim  that  '  time  is  money.' 
Health  is  money,  wit  is  money,  knowledge  is  money ; 
and  all  your  health,  and  wit,  and  knowledge,  may 
be  changed  into  gold,  but  the  gold  cannot  be  changed 
in  its  turn  back  into  health  and  wit." 

And  whatever  is  true  of  private  wealth,  is  it  not 
still  more  true  of  national  wealth  ?  Is  it  possible  to 
estimate  in  figures  or  to  measure  by  credit  the  true 
wealth  of  a  country  ?  There  have  been  and  there  still 
are  to  be  found  countries  which  may  be  called  poor. 
Are  the  people  less  happy  there  than  elsewhere  ? 
Are  they  less  prosperous,  less  healthy,  less  energetic, 
and,  small  though  they  be,  is  it  not  often  these  same 
people  who,  while  rich  countries  hesitate  (like  the 
soldier  mentioned  by  Horace  with  too  much  gold  in 
his  belt),  lead  all  the  others  into  the  paths  of  justice 
and  of  liberty  ?  "  The  strength  of  a  nation  is  in  its 
multitude,  not  in  its  territory;  but  only  in  its  sound 
multitude.  ...  It  has  been  the  madness  of  kings  to 


250    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

seek  for  land  instead  of  life."  Is  it  necessarily  a  sign 
of  strength  for  a  nation  to  have  a  large  revenue  ? 
For  example,  one  of  the  reasons  which  makes  France 
so  rich  relatively  to  the  total  of  her  population  is  her 
diminishing  birth-rate.  .  .  .  The  economists  boast  of 
this  high  level  of  fortune  for  each  individual.  But  is 
it  truly  a  national  strength  ?  Is  it  wealth  ? — One 
of  the  reasons  which  enables  us  to  meet  the  expenses 
of  our  budgets  is  that  each  year  the  taxes  on  drink 
yield  a  greater  return,  exceeding  often  the  optimistic 
forecasts  of  the  financiers.  This  proves  only  that  an 
increasing  number  of  people  leave  their  health  and 
sometimes  their  reason  in  the  gin-shops,  but  the  eco- 
nomists triumph.  Moreover,  because  ruined  healths 
and  darkened  intellects  add  to  revenue  returns,  do 
they  therefore  create  national  wealth  ?  and  can  this 
be  rightly  termed  wealth  ? 

The  absurdity  of  these  propositions  is  enough  to 
condemn  them.  The  truth  is  that  the  indefinite 
accumulation  of  money  for  the  sake  of  money,  the 
production  of  capital  for  the  sake  of  capital,  without 
regard  to  the  end  attained  by  this  accumulation,  is  in 
no  sense  the  same  thing  either  for  a  man  or  for  a 
nation  as  the  accumulation  of  things  useful,  necessary, 
and  beneficent.  "  The  best  and  simplest  general  type 
of  capital  is  a  well-made  ploughshare.  Now  if  that 
ploughshare  did  nothing  but  beget  other  plough- 
shares, in  a  polypous  manner, — however  the  great 
cluster  of  polypous  plough  might  glitter  in  the  sun,  it 
would  have  lost  its  function  of  capital.     And  the  true 


III.  LIFE  251 

home-question  to  every  capitalist  and  to  every  nation, 
is  not,  '  how  many  ploughs  have  you  ?  '  but,  '  where  are 
your  furrows  ?  '  not — '  how  quickly  will  this  capital 
reproduce  itself?' — but,  'what  will  it  do  during  repro- 
duction ? '  What  substance  will  it  furnish,  good  for 
life  ?  what  work  construct,  protective  of  life  ?  "  If  it 
is  used  to  make  adulterated  alcohol,  to  build  suburban 
residences  less  healthy  than  cottages,  to  create  an 
industry  out  of  pure  luxury,  which  destroys  the  lungs 
or  blinds  the  eyes  of  the  workmen,  or  a  harmful 
literature,  a  restless  and  pessimistic  art  which  en- 
feebles the  soul  of  the  intellectual  classes,  it  is  fatal. 
"  Production  does  not  consist  in  things  laboriously 
made,  but  in  things  serviceably  consumable ;  and  the 
question  for  the  nation  is  not  how  much  labour  it 
employs  but  how  much  life  it  produces." 

"There  is  no  Wealth  but  Life,  Life  including  all 
its  powers  of  love,  joy,  and  admiration."  Men  were 
deceived  "  if  in  a  state  of  infancy  they  supposed 
indifferent  things  such  as  excrescences  of  shell-fish, 
and  pieces  of  blue  and  red  stone,  to  be  valuable, 
and  spend  large  measures  of  the  labour  which  ought 
to  be  employed  for  the  extension  and  ennobling  of 
life,  in  diving  or  digging  for  them,  and  cutting  them 
into  various  shapes, — or  if,  in  the  same  state  of 
infancy,  they  imagine  precious  and  beneficent  things, 
such  as  air,  light,  and  cleanliness,  to  be  value- 
less,— or  if,  finally,  they  imagine  the  conditions  of 
their  own  existence,  by  which  alone  they  can  truly 
possess  or  use  anything,  such,  for  instance,  as  peace, 


/ 


252    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

trust,  and  love,  to  be  prudently  exchangeable,  when 
the  markets  offer,  for  gold,  iron,  or  excrescences  of 
shells. — In  fact  it  may  be  discovered  that  the  true 
veins  of  wealth  are  purple — and  not  in  Rock,  but 
in  Flesh  —  perhaps  even  that  the  final  outcome 
and  consummation  of  all  wealth  is  in  the  producing 
as  many  as  possible  full  -  breathed,  bright  -  eyed, 
and  happy -hearted  human  creatures.  ...  It  is 
open  to  serious  question,  whether,  among  national 
manufactures,  that  of  souls  of  a  good  quality  may 
not  at  last  turn  out  a  quite  leadingly  lucrative  one  ? 
^—The  real  science  of  political  economy — or  rather 
of  human  economy — is  that  which  teaches  nations  to 
desire  and  labour  for  the  things  that  lead  to  life 
and  which  teaches  them  to  scorn  and  destroy  the 
things  that  lead  to  destruction." 

Wealth,  then,  as  it  is  understood  in  the  current 
language  of  financiers  and  economists,  is  an  evil :  the 
enemy,  not  only  of  the  picturesque  beauty  of  nature, 
but  also  of  social  happiness.  Thus  it  is  bad  in  every 
way  and  therefore  not  legitimate.  What  ?  it  may  be 
said,  is  there  no  legitimate  wealth  ?  Not  very  great 
wealth,  replies  Ruskin.  "The  lawful  basis  of  wealth 
is,  that  a  man  who  works  should  be  paid  the  fair 
value  of  his  work  :  and  that  if  he  does  not  choose  to 
spend  it  to-day,  he  should  have  free  leave  to  keep  it, 
and  spend  it  to-morrow.  Thus,  an  industrious  man 
working  daily,  and  la}ring  by  daily,  attains  at  last 
the  possession  of  an  accumulated  sum  of  wealth,  to 
which  he  has  absolute  right.  .  .  .  Therefore  the  first 


III.   LIFE  253 

necessity  of  social  life  is  the  clearness  of  national 
conscience  in  enforcing  the  law  —  that  he  should 
keep  who  has  JUSTLY  EARNED."  So  far  we  agree 
with  the  economists  and  we  admit  readily  the  in- 
equality of  fortune.  Great  wealth  is  hardly  to  be 
acquired  in  this  way.  "  No  man  ever  became,  or  can 
become,  largely  rich  merely  by  labour  and  economy. 
All  large  fortunes  (putting  treasure-trove  and  gam- 
bling out  of  consideration)  are  founded  either  on 
occupation  of  land,  usury,  or  taxation  of  labour." — 
"  But  there  is  also  a  false  basis  of  distinction : 
namely,  the  power  held  over  those  who  are  earning 
wealth  by  those  who  already  possess  it,  and  only 
use  it  to  gain  more."  This  is  not  to  say  that  ^he 
labour-master  is  not  permissible.  This  is  not  to  say 
that  there  should  only  be  workmen  in  the  world, 
and  no  one  to  give  them  tools  and  to  direct  them. 
This  is  not  to  say  that  the  socialists  are  right  in 
maintaining  that  they  can  do  without  "  captains  of 
work."  But  the  economists  are  wrong  in  maintaining 
that  the  masters  may  appropriate  the  whole  profits 
of  labour  up  to  that  extreme  limit  which  causes  a 
strike.  "  But  I  beg  you  to  observe  that  there  is  a 
wide  difference  between  being  captains  or  governors 
of  work,  and  taking  the  profits  of  it.  It  does  not 
follow  because  you  are  general  of  an  army,  that  you 
are  to  take  all  the  treasure,  or  land,  it  wins."  The 
profit  due  to  the  master  by  reason  of  his  intellectual 
or  moral  labour  is  quite  legitimate.  But  the  excessive 
profit   by   this  master  or  capitalist,   solely   by  reason 


254    HIS  .ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

of  his  capital,  is  not  legitimate.  The  Church  de- 
nounced this  as  "  the  execrable  multiplying  of  money." 
It  is  not  wealth,  it  is  the  "  too  great  riches "  con- 
demned by  the  saints  when  they  spoke  Kara  tov<; 
TrXeove/cras. 

But,  the  economist  may  exclaim,  what  do  you  mean 
by  "too  great  riches"?  Is  this  a  scientific  formula? 
How  can  what  is  just  at  a  certain  figure  become 
unjust  when  it  passes  beyond  that  figure  ?  And 
what  figure  would  you  fix  ?  It  would  be  a  strange 
miracle  that  could  transform  an  action  quite  lawful  for 
a  working  man  who  has  economised  several  years  of 
wages,  into  a  wrongful  action  for  his  grandson  whose 
fortune,  increased  by  successive  interests,  arrives  at 
several  millions.  Whatever  is  right  in  a  financial 
operation  remains  right  for  this  also,  no  matter  what 
number  of  zeros  you  add  to  it.  Yes,  mathematically 
it  is  true,  but  humanly  and  socially  speaking  it  can 
be  infinitely  less  so.  Human  equations  are  not 
algebraic  equations.  There  are  certain  moral  ele- 
ments which  falsify  all  calculations,  certain  truths 
which  pushed  to  a  certain  point  become  errors,  and 
certain  kinds  of  justice  pushed  to  a  certain  point 
which  become  injustice  :  summumjus,  summa  injuria. 
In  theory,  a  large  capital  lawfully  acquired  may  also 
be  lawfully  employed.  As  a  fact  its  power  ruins 
and  its  weight  crushes  the  small  rival  industries 
ready  to  grow  up  under  its  shelter.  "  In  this 
respect,  money  is  now  exactly  what  mountain  pro- 
montories over  public  roads  were  in  old  times.     The 


III.   LIFE  255 

barons  fought  for  them  fairly : — the  strongest  and 
cunningest  got  them ;  then  fortified  them,  and  made 
every  one  who  passed  below  pay  toll.  Well,  capital 
now  is  exactly  what  crags  were  then.  Men  fight 
fairly  (we  will,  at  least,  grant  so  much,  though  it 
is  more  than  we  ought)  for  their  money :  but,  once 
having  got  it,  the  fortified  millionaire  can  make 
everybody  who  passes  below  pay  toll  to  his  million, 
and  build  another  tower  of  his  money  castle.  And 
I  can  tell  you,  the  poor  vagrants  by  the  roadside 
suffer  now  quite  as  much  from  the  bag-baron,  as 
ever  they  did  from  the  crag-baron." 

And  if  we  are  told  that  this  is  no  injustice  because 
it  is  the  immediate  and  necessary  effect  of  "  the 
struggle  for  life,"  we  shall  reply  that  the  supreme 
injustice  of  our  age  lies  precisely  in  this  horrible 
fratricidal  conflict  which  students  complacently  de- 
signate the  struggle  for  life.  We  ought  boldly  to 
censure  as  cruel,  cowardly,  and  pagan,  this  merciless 
rivalry  by  which  the  most  intelligent  and  the  most 
persevering  and  the  most  sagacious  ruin  the  feeble 
in  mind,  will,  and  judgment.  "  Is  it  not  wonderful, 
that  while  we  should  be  utterly  ashamed  to  use  a 
superiority  of  body,  in  order  to  thrust  our  weaker 
companions  aside  from  some  place  of  advantage,  we 
unhesitatingly  use  our  superiorities  of  mind  to  thrust 
them  back  from  whatever  good  that  strength  of  mind 
can  attain  ?  You  would  be  indignant  if  you  saw  a 
stout  fellow  thrust  himself  up  to  a  table  where  some 
hungry  children  were  being  fed,  and  reach  his  arm 


256     HIS  ^ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

over  their  heads,  and  take  their  bread  from  them. 
But  you  are  not  in  the  least  indignant  if,  when  a 
man  has  stoutness  of  thought  and  swiftness  of  capa- 
city, and,  instead  of  being  long-armed  only,  has  the 
much  greater  gift  of  being  long-headed — you  think  it 
perfectly  just  that  he  should  use  his  intellect  to  take 
the  bread  out  of  the  mouth  of  all  the  other  men  in 
the  town  who  are  of  the  same  trade  with  him." 

But  the  economist  will  say  this  competition  or,  if 
you  will,  this  struggle,  is  the  very  soul  of  commerce. 
Without  it  there  would  be  no  emulation,  no  progress, 
no  effort,  no  business,  and  therefore  no  wages  for 
working  men.  It  is  as  sad  as  it  is  inevitable  that 
here  and  there  it  should  crush  the  imprudent  and 
unskilful.  It  is  the  law  of  all  progress.  It  is  very 
praiseworthy  of  an  owner  to  give,  as  Ruskin  ordains, 
the  whole  of  his  actual  profit  to  his  workmen,  when 
he  has  no  means  of  making  them  suffer  any  of  his 
loss.  It  is  very  edifying  that  he  should  abstain  from 
all  competition  that  might  ruin  rivals  less  wealthy 
or  less  skilful.  Unfortunately  these  praiseworthy 
edifying  practices  extolled  by  Ruskin  might  possibly 
result  in  his  gradual  ruin :  a  crisis  of  difficult  cir- 
cumstances might  arise  in  which  he  would  be  forced 
either  to  disobey  the  prophet  of  Brantwood  or  to  die 
of  hunger.  .  .  . 

Ruskin  quietly  replies  :  Let  him  die  of  hunger. 
"  All  which  sounds  very  strange  :  the  only  real 
strangeness  in  the  matter  being,  nevertheless,  that 
it  should  so  sound."     Would  it  be  the  first  time  in 


III.  LIFE  257 

the  world  that  a  man  gave  his  life  for  his  fellows 
in  a  time  of  public  danger?  "Why  in  the  public 
estimate  of  honours  is  the  soldier  preferred  before 
the  merchant  ?  "  "  Philosophically,  it  does  not,  at 
first  sight,  appear  reasonable  that  a  peaceable  and 
rational  person,  whose  trade  is  buying  and  selling, 
should  be  held  in  less  honour  than  an  unpeaceable 
and  often  irrational  person,  whose  trade  is  slaying. 
Nevertheless  the  consent  of  mankind  has  always,  in 
spite  of  the  philosophers,  given  precedence  to  the 
soldier.     And  this  is  right. 

"  For  the  soldier's  trade,  verily  and  essentially,  is 
not  slaying,  but  being  slain.  This,  without  well 
knowing  its  own  meaning,  the  world  honours  it  for. 
A  bravo's  trade  is  slaying;  but  the  world  has  never 
respected  bravos  more  than  merchants :  the  reason 
it  honours  the  soldier  is,  because  he  holds  his  life  at 
the  service  of  the  State.  .  .  .  The  merchant  is  pre- 
sumed to  act  always  selfishly.  His  work  may  be 
very  necessary  to  the  community ;  but  the  motive  of 
it  is  understood  to  be  wholly  personal.  So  that 
among  the  five  great  intellectual  professions  relating 
to  the  necessities  of  life  "  which  have  hitherto  existed, 
his  alone  incurs  no  personal  danger. 

"  The  Soldier's  profession  is  to  defend  life. 

The  Pastor's,  to  teach  it. 

The  Physician's,  to  keep  it  in  health. 

The  Lawyer's,  to  enforce  justice  in  it. 

The  Merchant's,  to  provide  for  it. 

R 


258    HIS  .ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

And  the  duty  of  all  these  men  is,  on  due  occasion,  to 
die  for  it. 

The  Soldier,  rather  than  leave  his  post  in  battle. 
The  Physician,  rather  than  leave  his  post  in  plague. 
The  Pastor,  rather  than  teach  falsehood. 
The  Lawyer,  rather  than  countenance  injustice. 
The    Merchant — what    is  his    '  due  occasion '    ot 
death  ? 

It  is  the  main  question  for  the  merchant,  as  for  all 
of  us.  For,  truly,  the  man  who  does  not  know  when 
to  die,  does  not  know  how  to  live." 

Well,  for  the  merchant  who  becomes  every  day 
more  important  in  the  modern  world,  for  the  owner, 
for  the  manufacturer,  who  is  in  our  days  a  real  leader 
of  men,  there  are  occasions  of  devotion  to  the  com- 
mon welfare.  "There  are  circumstances  in  which  he 
can  show  a  self-sacrifice  equal  to  that  of  the  soldier, 
and  which  would  raise  him  to  the  level  of  the  soldier, 
— if  he  could  understand  social  duty  as  military  duty 
is  understood,  and  fulfil  it.  And  when  social  duty 
calls  upon  him  to  sacrifice  riches  rather  than  cause 
ruin  to  his  competitors,  or  a  reduction  of  wages  to 
the  workmen,  he  is  bound  to  do  so." 

For  from  whichever  point  of  view  we  regard  it, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  iEsthetic  of  Nature, 
disfigured  and  defiled  by  industrial  speculations,  or 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  welfare  of  the  lower 
classes  who  are  pillaged  and  crushed  by  it,  wealth 
of  gold  is  an  evil.      "There  IS  NO   WEALTH  BUT 


III.  LIFE  259 

LIFE.  Life,  including  all  its  powers  of  love,  of  joy, 
of  admiration.  That  country  is  the  richest  which 
nourishes  the  greatest  number  of  noble  and  happy 
human  beings :  that  man  is  richest  who,  having  per- 
fected the  functions  of  his  own  life  to  the  utmost,  has 
also  the  widest  helpful  influence,  both  personal,  and 
by  means  of  his  possessions,  over  the  lives  of  others." 
A  so-called  wealthy  country  is  not  a  happier  nor  a 
more  beautiful  country,  and  the  worship  of  mammon  is 
quite  as  impossible  to  reconcile  with  social  justice  as 
with  the  Religion  of  Beauty. 

§3 

There  is  a  story  ot  a  famous  aesthete  who  over- 
took a  poor  wretch  begging  on  London  Bridge 
in  an  aggressively  inartistic  costume.  This  beggar 
wore  a  filthy  frock  coat  and  a  horrible  tall  hat.  The 
aesthete,  disgusted  by  the  want  of  harmony  between 
the  garments  of  the  wretch  and  his  profession,  took 
him  to  the  cleverest  tailor  that  he  could  find,  and 
fitted  him  out  at  his  own  expense  in  correct  begging 
clothes,  copied  from  the  pictures  of  the  Old  Masters 
in  the  National  Gallery.  He  then  took  him  back  to 
the  bridge,  but  the  story  does  not  relate  that  he  gave 
him  anything  to  eat.  This  aesthete  was  neither  a 
follower  of  Ruskin  nor  an  aestheticist. 

The  story  goes  on  to  say  that  an  evangelist,  coming 
along  the  same  bridge,  was  indignant  that  the  outward 
appearance  of  the  hungry  man  had  been  cared  for 


26o    HIS  .ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

and  his  soul  neglected.  So  he  led  him  off  to  a 
chapel,  and  after  showing  him  the  way  of  eternal 
life,  took  him  back  again  to  his  bridge.  But  the 
story  does  not  say  that  he  gave  him  anything  to 
drink.  This  evangelist  was  not  a  disciple  either. 
Ruskin  would  have  taken  the  beggar  not  to  a 
picture-gallery  nor  to  a  meeting-house,  but  into  a 
pastry-cook's  shop.  He  would  have  given  heed  not 
to  his  clothes,  not  to  his  soul,  but  first  of  all  to  his 
stomach. 

For  if  too  much  "industrial  enterprise"  and  wealth 
in  a  country  destroys  the  beauty  of  nature,  too  much 
misery  in  a  town  destroys  the  beauty  of  the  human 
form,  and  without  plastic  beauty  no  art  and  no  visions 
of  art  are  possible.  "  You  cannot  have  a  landscape 
by  Turner,  without  a  country  for  him  to  paint ;  you 
cannot  have  a  portrait  by  Titian,  without  a  man  to 
be  pourtrayed.  The  beginning  of  art  is  in  getting 
our  country  clean,  and  our  people  beautiful.  There 
has  been  art  where  the  people  were  not  all  lovely, 
where  even  their  lips  were  thick — and  their  skins 
black,  because  the  sun  had  looked  upon  them;  but 
never  in  a  country  where  the  people  were  pale  with 
miserable  toil  and  deadly  shade,  and  where  the  lips 
of  youth,  instead  of  being  full  with  blood,  were 
pinched  by  famine,  or  warped  with  poison." 

For  the  human  form,  then,  we  must  lay  stress  on 
the  cultivation  of  the  beautiful.  "The  body  of  each 
poor  child  must  be  made  as  beautiful  and  perfect  in 
its  youth  as  it  can  be,  wholly  irrespective  of  ulterior 


III.  LIFE  261 

purpose."  When  he  arrives  at  the  age  when  he 
must  earn  his  bread,  his  labour  will  perhaps  deform, 
deface,  debase,  and  distort  the  splendid  pliant  muscles, 
as  we  see  them  in  the  Vatican  athletes  who  anoint 
themselves  for  the  coming  contest.  But  meanwhile, 
"  let  the  living  creature  whom  you  mean  to  kill,  get 
the  full  strength  of  its  body  first,  and  taste  the  joy, 
and  put  on  the  beauty  of  youth.  ...  To  this  end, 
your  schools  must  be  in  fresh  country,"  and  exer- 
cises of  all  sorts  and  music  "should  be  the  primal 
heads  of  this  bodily  education."  Why  are  we  forced 
to  study  and  grow  pale  before  headless  and  handless 
marbles  in  a  museum  ?  Our  chests  and  shoulders 
should  be  as  well  worthy  to  be  seen  as  those  Elgin 
Marbles.  We  should  listen  neither  to  the  ascetics 
nor  to  the  preachers.  We  should  not  imprison  the 
best  among  men  in  cloisters,  that  they  may  devote 
themselves  to  what  they  pompously  term  "the  Ser- 
vice of  God  "  ;  rather  should  they  devote  themselves 
to  the  service  of  man.  "A  woman  should  earnestly 
desire  to  be  beautiful,  as  she  should  desire  to  be  in- 
telligent. The  man  and  woman  are  meant  by  God 
to  be  perfectly  noble  and  beautiful  in  each  other's 
eyes." 

Now  the  greatest  obstacle  to  plastic  beauty  is 
poverty,  and,  in  default  of  human  sentiment,  it  is  the 
aesthetical  sentiment  which  urges  us  to  fight  and  to 
vanquish  it.  But  how  ?  By  all  means  in  our  power  : 
by  charity  towards  unmerited  misfortune,  by  the  re- 
pression of  vice,  by  grace,  by  strength,  by  gold,  and 


262    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

by  iron.  Gold  scattered  by  handfuls  as  the  poet 
scattered  lilies  on  the  ancient  tomb,  as  Spring  scatters 
the  roses  over  Botticelli's  grass.  What  we  are  in 
the  habit  of  giving  is  nothing :  we  must  give  all. 
The  economists  are  content  with  the  remedies  offered 
to  the  poor  by  public  or  private  charity ;  they  pride 
themselves  on  the  hospitals,  asylums,  orphanages, 
and  dispensaries.  What  avails  it  ?  And  if  it  avails, 
whence  come  all  the  crippled  limbs,  the  emaciated 
faces  in  our  towns,  the  livid  countenances  in  our 
prisons  ?  How  can  society  speak  of  charity  while 
so  much  injustice  remains,  or  of  the  fine  arts  while 
so  much  human  misery  exists  ?  So  long  as  human 
beings  suffer  cold  and  hunger  in  the  country  around 
us,  not  only  is  art  not  possible,  but  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  splendour  of  raiment  and  furniture  is  a 
crime.  Better  a  hundred  times  that  the  marbles  of 
Phidias  should  crumble  and  the  colours  of  Lionardo's 
portraits  fade,  than  that  the  features  of  living  women 
should  be  defiled  or  tears  fill  the  eyes  of  children 
who  are  living  or  who  at  least  might  live  if  poverty 
had  not  already  tainted  them  with  the  hues  of  death. 
In  the  living  ^Esthetic  all  the  gold  given  to  art 
is  lost  when  life  is  needing  it,  and  it  is  shameful  to 
find  pleasure  in  the  adornment  of  some  women  while 
other  women  lack  sufficient  clothing,  and  are  despoiled 
of  all  human  beauty  by  cold,  sickness,  and  the  weari- 
ness of  unhealthy  life. 

Then  the  economists  rise  up  with  the  ironical  smile 
so  often  seen  in  Holbein's  portraits  of  learned  men. 


III.   LIFE  263 

When  we   attack  luxury  by  the  plea  of  charity  they 
defend  it  by  that  of  science.     One  of  their  favourite 
theories,  also  the  most  questionable,  is   that  it   is  of 
little  importance  how  the   rich   man   spends  his  gold  • 
provided  he   spends   it,   and    the  more    he    spends   it 
even   in   useless  articles  of  luxury,   the   more    effica- 
ciously he  assists  society.     "Another  erroneous  idea," 
says   a   Report  of  the   New   York   Council,    "is    that 
luxurious  living,  extravagant  dressing,  splendid  turn- 
outs and  fine  houses,  are  the  cause  of  distress  to  a 
nation.     No  more  erroneous   impression   could  exist. 
Every    extravagance    that    the    man    of    100,000,    or 
1,000,000  dollars  indulges  in  adds  to  the  means,  the 
support,   the   wealth   of  ten    or   a  hundred   who  had 
little  or  nothing  else  but  their  labour,  their  intellect, 
or  their  taste.     If  a  man  of  1,000,000  dollars  spends 
principal  and  interest  in  ten  years,  and  finds  himself 
beggared    at    the   end   of  that   time,   he   has   actually 
made    a  hundred  who   have    catered   to  his  extrava- 
gance,   employers    or   employed,   so    much    richer    by 
the   division  of  his  wealth.     He   may  be  ruined,  but 
the  nation   is  better  off  and   richer,  for  one  hundred 
minds    and    hands,    with    10,000    dollars    apiece,    are 
far  more  productive  than  one  with  the  whole." 

"  Yes,  gentlemen  of  the  Common  Council,"  replies 
Ruskin,  "  but  what  has  been  doing  in  the  time  of  the 
transfer?  The  spending  of  the  fortune  has  taken 
a  certain  number  of  years  (suppose  ten),  and  during 
that  time  1,000,000  dollars'  worth  of  work  has  been 
done  by  the  people,  who   have  been  paid  that  sum 


264    HIS  AESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

for  it.  Where  is  the  product  of  that  work  ?  By  your 
own  statement,  wholly  consumed ;  for  the  man  for 
whom  it  has  been  done  is  now  a  beggar.  ...  If  a 
schoolboy  goes  out  in  the  morning  with  five  shillings 
in  his  pocket,  and  comes  home  at  night  penniless, 
having  spent  his  all  in  tarts,  principal  and  interest 
are  gone,  and  fruiterer  and  baker  are  enriched.  So 
far  so  good.  But  suppose  the  schoolboy,  instead, 
has  bought  a  book  and  a  knife  ;  principal  and  interest 
are  gone,  and  bookseller  and  cutler  are  enriched.  But 
the  schoolboy  is  enriched  also,  and  may  help  his 
schoolfellows  next  day  with  knife  and  book,  instead  of 
lying  in  his  bed  and  incurring  a  debt  to  the  doctor." 

The  study  of  expenditure,  therefore,  is  not  super- 
fluous when  we  are  investigating  the  causes  of  poverty 
and  its  remedies.  And  it  is  important  not  only  to 
know  whether  the  wealthy  spend  their  money  and 
whether  it  gives  work,  but  also  to  define  how  they 
spend  it  and  the  use  of  this  work.  For  good  sense 
without  the  aid  of  science,  and  practical  knowledge 
without  the  aid  of  political  economy,  show  that  the 
expenditure  of  this  money  in  useless  luxuries,  which 
are  rapidly  consumed  without  any  benefit  to  health 
or  wealth,  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  expenditure 
of  it  in  making  roads,  ports,  canals,  and  sanitary 
appliances,  which  will  not  only  augment  the  wealth 
of  the  workmen  but  also  that  of  the  community. 
To  plead  for  luxury  because  it  gives  work  to  the 
makers  of  luxury  cannot  be  a  solid  argument  till  it 
can  be  shown  that  the  makers  of  unnecessary  articles 


III.  LIFE^  265 

are  more  interesting  than  others,  or  when  it  can  be 
proved  that  they  are  more  numerous,  and  that  con- 
sequently the  general  well-being  of  workmen  should 
be  sacrificed  to  them — a  thesis  which  the  partisans 
of  luxury  are  not  yet  in  a  position  to  establish. 

Further,  what  is  the  meaning  of  "  making  work- 
men live "  ?  There  is  only  one  way  of  making  any 
one  live ;  that  is,  to  produce,  or  to  help  to  produce, 
things  useful  to  life,  things  which  nourish,  which 
clothe,  which  preserve  from  heat  or  cold,  which  heal, 
which  purify.  All  the  ingenuity  of  economists  would 
not  alter  the  fact  that  a  hundred  men  employed  in 
demolishing  the  insanitary  hovels  of  a  town  so  as 
to  rebuild  them,  or  in  cleaning  out  the  cesspools 
of  a  village,  would  do  more  for  life  than  a  hundred 
men  transformed  into  footmen,  spending  the  time 
waiting  in  antechambers  during  a  hundred  unneces- 
sary conversations,  or  in  figuring  uselessly  with  folded 
arms  by  the  side  of  a  hundred  coachmen. 

"For  instance,"  says  Ruskin,  "if  you  are  a  young 
lady,  and  employ  a  certain  number  of  sempstresses 
for  a  given  time,  in  making  a  given  number  of  simple 
and  serviceable  dresses — suppose,  seven  ;  of  which 
you  can  wear  one  yourself  for  half  the  winter,  and 
give  six  away  to  poor  girls  who  have  none,  you 
are  spending  your  money  unselfishly.  But  if  you 
employ  the  same  number  of  sempstresses  for  the 
same  number  of  days,  in  making  four,  or  five,  or  six 
beautiful  flounces  for  your  own  ball-dress — flounces 
which    will    clothe    no    one    but    yourself,   and   which 


266    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

you  will  yourself  be  unable  to  wear  at  more  than 
one  ball — you  are  employing  your  money  selfishly. 
You  have  maintained,  indeed,  in  each  case,  the  same 
number  of  people ;  but  in  one  case  you  have  directed 
their  labour  to  the  service  of  the  community,  in  the 
other  case  you  have  consumed  it  wholly  upon  your- 
self. I  don't  say  you  are  never  to  do  so;  I  don't 
say  you  ought  not  sometimes  to  think  of  yourselves 
only,  and  to  make  yourselves  as  pretty  as  you  can ; 
only  do  not  confuse  coquettishness  with  benevolence, 
nor  cheat  yourselves  into  thinking  that  all  the  finery 
you  can  wear  is  so  much  put  into  the  hungry  mouths 
of  those  beneath  you." 

Neither  let  us  confuse  vanity  with  the  love  of  art, 
nor  plead  for  luxury  on  the  pretext  that  it  creates  a 
taste  for  Beauty.  The  majority  of  the  great  works  of 
the  Middle  Ages  are  not  due  by  any  means  to  the 
personal  luxury  of  an  individual,  but  on  the  contrary 
to  the  encouragement  of  combined  artistic  effort. 
And  in  the  present  day,  for  the  true  encouragement  of 
art,  it  is  not  the  treasure  of  a  Maecenas  but  a  "  com- 
monalty "  of  small  purses  that  is  needed.  "  Instead  of 
the  capitalist-employer's  paying  three  hundred  pounds 
for  a  full-length  portrait  of  himself,  in  the  attitude  of 
investing  his  capital,  the  united  workmen  had  better 
themselves  pay  the  three  hundred  pounds  into  the 
hands  of  the  ingenious  artist,  for  painting,  in  the 
antiquated  manner  of  Lionardo  or  Raphael,  some 
subject  more  religiously  or  historically  interesting  to 
them  ;  and  placed  where  they  can  always  see  it." 


III.  LIFE  267 

Thus  gold  can  do  much  to  avert  poverty.  And 
society  is  responsible  for  many  of  the  physical  evils 
of  its  environment,  but  is  it  responsible  for  all  ? 
Those  who  attack  society  the  most,  do  they  produce 
the  weapons  needed  to  triumph  over  poverty?  Not 
at  all.  They  refuse  them,  on  the  contrary,  so  that 
the  fiercest  socialists  are  not  any  nearer  the  solution 
of  the  social  problem  than  the  most  plausible  among 
economists.  For  it  is  true  that  society  is  respon- 
sible, but  it  is  only  responsible  for  the  things  that 
it  can  prevent.  And  among  miseries  there  are  those 
which  are  not  the  result  of  an  inadequate  wage  or 
insufficient  education :  there  are  those  which  result 
from  misconduct,  for  example,  alcoholism.  Now  can 
we  prevent  alcoholism  ?  Have  we  the  right  to  shut 
the  public-houses?  Have  the  socialists  ever  pro- 
posed any  law  to  abolish  three-fourths  of  the  dis- 
tilleries of  alcohol?  And  without  going  as  far  as 
legislation,  have  the  socialist  municipalities  used  the 
means  given  them  by  law  in  order  to  reduce  the 
number  of  these  destructive  and  poisonous  dens  ? 
These  same  socialists  who  make  society  responsible 
for  the  harm  done  by  the  gin-shop  would,  were  the 
suggestion  made,  support  these  causes  of  the  evil 
in  the  name  of  liberty.  It  is  the  duty  of  society  to 
aid  the  drunkard  coming  out  of  the  gin-shop,  but  it 
has  not  the  right  to  stop  him  going  in.  How  can 
it  be  responsible  if  it  is  not  free,  and  why  should  it 
accept  the  duty  of  curing  these  wretched  ones  if  it 
has  no  right  of  previous  interference  ? 


268    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

Ruskin  assures  us  it  has  the  right.  It  has  especi- 
ally such  rights,  for  there  is  no  remedy  so  good  as 
prevention.  "  The  right  of  public  interference  with 
their  conduct  begins  when  they  begin  to  corrupt 
themselves ; — not  merely  at  the  moment  when  they 
have  proved  themselves  hopelessly  corrupt.  ...  It 
has  been  the  manner  of  modern  philanthropy  to 
remain  passive  until  that  precise  period,  and  to 
leave  the  sick  to  perish,  and  the  foolish  to  stray, 
while  it  spent  itself  in  frantic  exertions  to  raise  the 
dead,  and  reform  the  dust.  "The  recent  direction 
of  a  great  weight  of  public  opinion  against  capital 
punishment  is,  I  trust,  the  sign  of  an  awakening 
perception  that  punishment  is  the  last  and  worst 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  legislator  for  the 
prevention  of  crime.  The  true  instruments  of  re- 
formation are  employment  and  reward ; — not  punish- 
ment. Aid  the  willing,  honour  the  virtuous,  and 
compel  the  idle  into  occupation,  and  there  will  be 
no  need  for  the  compelling  of  any  into  the  great  and 
last  indolence  of  death." 

To  begin  with,  the  State  is  to  accustom  the  child 
to  an  intellectual  and  manual  labour,  compulsory  and 
free: — "Go  out  into  the  highways  and  hedges,  and 
compel  them  to  come  in."  But  at  the  same  time  it 
must  not  allow  this  work  to  be  excessive.  "  In  order 
that  men  may  be  able  to  support  themselves  when 
they  are  grown,  their  strength  must  be  properly 
developed  while  they  are  young ;  and  the  State 
should  always  see  to  this — not  allowing  their  health 


III.   LIFE  269 

to  be  broken  by  too  early  labour,  nor  their  powers 
to  be  wasted  for  want  of  knowledge."  Later,  it 
should  not  permit  the  health  of  man  to  be  injured  by 
the  want  of  muscular  toil,  nor  his  mind  to  be  distorted 
by  too  much  knowledge.  There  is  much  talk  of  the 
right  of  work,  but  there  is  little  talk  of  the  duty  of 
working.  Again,  if  the  workman  has  the  right  to 
insist  that  the  State  should  keep  him  employed  on 
Saturday  because  he  has  need  of  his  wages  that 
day,  surely  the  State  should  have  the  right  to  say 
he  must  work  on  Monday  instead  of  going  to  drink 
his  wage  at  the  gin-shop.  You  must  do  something 
for  me,  says  the  idle  beggar.  Good,  replies  society, 
but  then  you  must  do  something  for  us.  These 
clothes  that  you  wear,  this  food  that  you  eat,  have 
been  produced  by  some  one's  labour.  What  labour 
do  you  give  us  in  return  ?  None.  This  is  not 
just.  "  Since  for  every  idle  person,  some  one  else 
must  be  working  somewhere  to  provide  him  with 
clothes  and  food,  and  doing,  therefore,  double  the 
quantity  of  work  that  would  be  enough  for  his 
own  needs,  it  is  only  a  matter  of  pure  justice  to 
compel  the  idle  person  to  work  for  his  maintenance 
himself." 

But  here  again  the  would-be  reformer  comes  into 
collision  with  the  protests  of  economists  and  radicals. 
They  oppose  the  despoiling  of  the  rich  for  the  sake 
of  the  usefulness  of  luxury,  and  in  like  manner  they 
oppose  the  compulsion  of  the  poor  in  the  name  of 
liberty.     Misery  proceeds  from  two  things,  misfortune 


270    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

and  vice.  The  unfortunate  should  not  be  succoured 
at  the  expense  of  the  industries  of  luxury,  the  vicious 
should  not  be  restrained  at  the  expense  of  individual 
liberty. 

What  then  is  liberty  ?  This  word  irritates  Ruskin 
immeasurably,  like  a  lie,  a  defiance,  a  hypocrisy,  the 
laugh  of  a  cretin.  What  is  the  liberty  spoken  of, 
and  what  the  independence  ?  And  liberty  from 
what  ?  From  eternal  laws  and  venerable  people  ? 
Then  liberty  is  a  privilege  of  the  most  insignifi- 
cant, the  most  feeble,  and  the  vainest  of  creatures. 
"  The  dog  fastened  to  a  chain  is  a  good  animal  and 
strong.  The  fly  is  free.  Throughout  nature  there  is 
obedience,  the  laws  of  gravitation  govern  everything. 
The  massive  rock  obeys  more  docilely  than  the 
miserable  feather,  falling  in  endless  gyrations  to  the 
ground.  When  Giotto  drew  his  circle,  saying,  'You 
may  judge  my  masterhood  of  craft  by  seeing  that  I 
can  draw  a  circle  unerringly,'  did  he  give  perfect 
freedom  to  his  hand  ?  "  The  radical  doctrine  is  that, 
whatever  use  he  may  make  of  it,  liberty  is  a  good 
thing  for  man.  "  Folly  unfathomable,  unspeakable, 
unendurable  to  look  in  the  full  face  of,  as  the  laugh 
of  a  cretin.  You  will  send  your  child,  will  you, 
into  a  room  where  the  table  is  loaded  with  sweet 
wine  and  fruit  —  some  poisoned,  some  not  ?  —  you 
will  say  to  him,  '  Choose  freely,  my  little  child. 
It  is  so  good  for  you  to  have  freedom  of  choice ;  it 
forms  your  character — your  individuality.  If  you 
take  the  wrong  cup,  or   the  wrong  berry,  you  will 


III.   LIFE  271 

die  before  the  day  is  over,  but  you  will  have  acquired 
the  dignity  of  a  free  child  '  ?  " 

But  there  is  a  holy  liberty  which  each  man  should 
possess :  it  is  freedom  from  his  own  tyrannical  in- 
stincts and  from  his  absorbing  prejudices.  Before 
he  can  be  free  from  others,  he  ought  to  be  free  from 
himself.  What  is  the  use  of  liberating  him  from 
all  outside  obligations  if  his  power  is  always  impeded 
by  his  own  vicious  tastes  ?  Where  is  the  use  of 
space  if  we  have  no  power  to  expand  ?  We  cry 
out  against  despotism.  Are  we  capable  of  liberty  ? 
"  Tintoret's  touch,  Luini's,  Correggio's,  Reynolds',  and 
Velasquez's,  are  all  as  free  as  air,  and  yet  right.  .  .  . 
By  the  discipline  of  five  hundred  years  they  had 
learned  and  inherited  such  power.  .  .  .  and  whereas 
all  former  painters  could  be  right  only  under  re- 
straint, they  could  be  right,  free.  .  .  .  Obey,  and 
you  also  shall  be  free  in  time ;  but  in  these  minor 
things,  as  well  as  in  great,  it  is  only  right  service 
which  is  perfect  freedom." 

Right  service  alone  can  triumph  in  life  over  un- 
happiness,  as  in  art  it  triumphs  over  ugliness.  It 
is  by  assiduous  work  among  the  poor  and  the 
condemnation  of  all  luxury  and  all  unproductive 
spending  among  the  rich  that  health,  vigour,  and 
grace,  that  is  to  say  Beauty,  can  be  restored  to 
suffering  mankind.  And  perhaps  here  again  the 
worship  of  loveliness  in  all  things  is  the  surest 
guide  towards  the  solution  of  those  problems  which 
are  called  social. 


272     HIS  .ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 


§4 

Lastly,  it  would  be  of  no  advantage  to  restore 
their  primitive  beauty  and  grace  to  living  human 
bodies,  if  man's  soul  is  not  able  to  find  pleasure  in 
their  happiness.  What  is  the  use  of  the  loveliness 
of  things  if  man  is  not  capable  of  appreciating  it  ? 
What  is  the  use  of  beautiful  creatures  and  objects, 
unless  there  are  souls  able  to  take  delight  in  them  ? 
Now  have  the  minds  01  our  fellow-men  the  capacity 
for  such  admiration  ?  Some  there  are,  no  doubt, 
and  they  are  the  fortunate  ones.  But  do  not  many 
of  us  pass  by  the  beauties  scattered  in  profusion 
throughout  nature  and  art  much  as  the  attendants 
in  a  museum,  or  the  policemen,  walk  about  among 
the  pictures  of  Win  Dyck  and  Hobbema  ?  Our 
education,  our  manners,  our  occupations,  give  no 
training  in  this  sense.  We  have  neither  sufficient 
attention  nor  leisure  for  the  higher  joys  of  aesthetical 
life.  "The  whole  force  of  education,  until  very  lately, 
has  been  directed  in  every  possible  way  to  the  de- 
struction of  the  love  of  nature.  The  only  knowledge 
which  has  been  considered  essential  among  us  is  that 
of  words,  and,  next  after  it,  of  the  abstract  sciences ; 
while  every  liking  shown  by  children  for  simple 
natural  history  has  been  either  violently  checked, 
(if  it  looked  an  inconvenient  form  for  the  house- 
maids,) or  else  scrupulously  limited  to  hours  of  play ; 
and    the   love    of   nature    has    become    inherently   the 


III.   LIFE  273 

characteristic  of  truants  and  idlers.  While  also  the 
art  of  drawing,  which  is  of  more  real  importance  to 
the  human  race  than  that  of  writing  (because  people 
can  hardly  draw  anything  without  being  of  some 
use  both  to  themselves  and  others,  and  can  hardly 
write  anything  without  wasting  their  own  time  and 
that  of  others), — this  art  of  drawing,  I  say,  which  on 
plain  and  stern  system  should  be  taught  to  every 
child,  just  as  writing  is,  —  has  been  so  neglected 
and  abused,  that  there  is  not  one  man  in  a  thou- 
sand, even  of  its  professed  teachers,  who  knows  its 
first  principles." 

We  must  first  cultivate  the  faculty  of  admiration 
among  children.  "Botanists  have  discovered  some 
wonderful  connection  between  nettles  and  figs,"  .  .  . 
which  is  very  interesting,  but  a  cowboy  had  better 
learn  "  what  effects  nettles  have  on  hay,  and  what 
taste  they  will  give  to  porridge ;  and  it  will  give  him 
nearly  a  new  life  if  he  can  be  got  but  once,  in  a 
springtime,  to  look  well  at  the  beautiful  circlet  of 
white  nettle  blossom,  and  work  out  with  his  school- 
master the  curves  of  its  petals,  and  the  way  it  is 
set  on  its  central  mast."  The  scholars  in  primary 
schools  should  be  told :  "  Draw  such  and  such  a 
flower  in  outline,  with  its  bell  towards  you.  Draw 
it  with  its  side  towards  you.  Paint  the  spots  upon 
it.  Draw  a  duck's  head — her  foot.  Now  a  robin's 
—  a  thrush's,  —  now  the  spots  upon  the  thrush's 
breast."  But  instead  the  contents  of  the  bird's 
stomach   are   described.     Children   are   not   taught   to 

S 


274    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

admire  the  beauties  of  the  clouds  or  the  mosses, 
they  are  taught  the  value  of  the  air  for  heating 
furnaces,  and  that  of  textile  fibres  for  use  in  looms. 
The  object  seems  to  be  their  "erudition"  but  not 
their  education ;  for  to  educate  a  child  is  not  to 
teach  him  "  what  he  knew  not,  but  to  make  him 
what  he  was  not."  And  the  beginning  of  all  educa- 
tion is  "  Reverence,  Compassion,  Admiration."  For 
what  ?  No  matter  what.  Let  the  child  worship 
pebbles  or  vegetables  if  he  has  nothing  else  to 
reverence,  but  "  reverence  and  compassion  we  are 
to  teach  him  primarily."  And  above  all  that  he 
should  not  learn  analysis  and  dissection  which  chill 
and  destroy.  It  is  of  no  moment  that  he  learns 
rather  less.  We  do  not  live  to  learn  any  more  than 
we  live  to  eat.  We  live  in  order  to  love.  As  long 
as  knowledge  stimulates  or  increases  this  strength 
in  us,  it  is  serviceable,  but  it  is  fatal  directly  it  dimi- 
nishes it.  What !  Knowledge  can  be  an  evil  ?  No, 
it  is  a  good  like  light.  But  butterflies  perish  in 
seeking  light,  and  man  perishes  in  seeking  knowledge. 
Men  or  butterflies,  what  we  demand  from  light  is 
less  that  it  should  explain  things  than  that  it  should 
beautify  them. 

"  In  Reverence  is  the  chief  joy  and  power  of  life. 
.  .  .  What  I  have  suggested  hitherto  .  .  .  you  must 
receive  throughout  as  merely  motive  of  thought.  .  .  . 
The  feelings  that  I  most  desire  to  cultivate  in  your 
minds  are  those  of  reverence  and  admiration.  .  .  . 
This  is  the  thing  which   I  KNOW — and  which,  if  you 


III.  LIFE  275 

labour  faithfully,  you  shall  know  also.  .  .  .  Reverence, 
for  what  is  pure  and  bright  in  your  own  youth  ;  for 
what  is  true  and  tried  in  the  age  of  others  ;  for  all 
that  is  gracious  among  the  living, — great  among  the 
dead, — and    marvellous,   in    the    Powers    that    cannot 
die."      This    is    the    secret    of   happiness.       For    the 
disciple  of  Ruskin   there   is   no   pleasure  to  be   com- 
pared to  aesthetical  pleasure,  and  it  alone  is  sufficient 
to  take  the  place  of  all  others.     If  he  should  be  rich 
he  will  undertake  by  intelligent  patronage  to  furnish 
the  people  with   something   to   admire.     He  will   not 
make  use  of  his  resources  for  personal  enjoyment  of 
the  moment,  but  for  monuments  serviceable  for  after 
ages.     Should  he  have  the  good  fortune  to  meet  with 
a  Michael  Angelo,  he  will  not  command  him  to  mould 
a  statue  out  of  snow  like  Pietro  di  Medici.     His  first 
duty  on    the    contrary    would    be    "to    see    that    no 
intellect   shall   thus   glitter  merely   in   the   manner    of 
hoar-frost ;   but  that  it  shall   be   well  vitrified,  like  a 
painted  window,  and  shall  be   set  so  between  shafts 
of  stone  and    bands  of  iron,   that    it    shall   bear  the 
sunshine  upon  it,  and  send  the  sunshine  through  it, 
from    generation    to   generation."     If  he   be  poor  he 
would   rejoice  in   seeing  things   of  beauty  possessed 
by  others,  by  churches,  by  museums,  surpassing  all 
private  collections  in  their  manifold  treasures.     If  he 
has  the  means  of  travelling  and  following  up  abroad 
the  artistic  relics  of  great  creators  of  Art,  he  would 
do   so  constantly,  marking  with   a  white  cross  those 
days  of  his  life  when  a  new  interpretation  of  beauty 


276     HIS  .ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

dawned  upon  him,  or  when  in  the  solitude  of  a 
museum  a  new  master  was  revealed  to  him.  If  he 
is  stopped  on  the  way  by  want  of  funds,  he  would 
recall  the  pilgrimages  so  often  undertaken  by  poor 
artists  of  Poussin's  time,  who,  leaving  for  Rome, 
stopped  at  Lyons  or  at  Avignon,  and  paid  for  each 
stage  by  a  picture,  vainly  stretching  out  their  arms 
toward  the  Eternal  City,  and  arriving  at  last  better 
fitted  by  long  expectation  to  feel  its  eternity,  and  by 
long  desire  to  taste  its  joys.  It  is  unnecessary  for 
the  enjoyment  of  aesthetical  life,  that  he  should  visit 
every  beautiful  country :  but  it  is  essential  that  he 
should  give  heed  to  all  loveliness  in  the  country  that 
he  does  see.  If  he  sees  a  beautiful  woman  he  would 
admire  her  beauty :  if  she  is  ugly  he  would  admire 
her  smile :  if  she  does  not  smile  he  would  reflect  on 
her  dignity  or  nobility.  If  only  one  note  remains  in 
his  clavichord,  the  disciple  would  love  this  note.  If 
the  country  where  he  dwells  has  only  one  river,  like 
Zeeland,  he  would  love  this  river :  if  his  window  is 
so  small  that  at  night  he  can  see  only  one  star, 
he  would  adore  this  star:  and  by  dint  of  watching 
for  the  beauty  that  is  in  everything,  he  would 
create  happiness  for  himself  with  the  crumbs  of  the 
feast,  where  others,  satiated,  drink  long  draughts 
of  boredom. 

As  it  is  not  possible  to  admire  anything  that  is 
inferior  to  him,  he  would  desire  to  have  many  things 
and  many  people  superior  to  him.  In  this  way  he 
would  transform   into  happiness  such   things  as  are 


III.  LIFE  277 

often  secret  causes  of  annoyance  or  discomfort  to 
others.  Walking  he  would  wish  to  see  handsome 
equipages  passing  along  the  roads ;  they  are  a 
pleasure  to  his  sight  which  he  is  not  to  theirs.  In 
a  town  he  would  dwell,  not  in  a  palace,  but  in  a 
modest  house  opposite  a  palace,  that  he  might  admire 
at  leisure  the  beautiful  architecture.  It  is  from  the 
end  of  the  table  that  the  general  effect  of  the  dresses 
and  flowers  can  be  best  observed.  It  is  from  the 
nameless  crowd  that  the  effect  of  a  procession  is 
the  most  appreciated.  He  would  obey  his  king  if 
he  has  a  king;  the  elders  of  his  family  if  he  has 
elders;  the  laws  of  his  country  if  his  country  has 
laws ;  but  he  will  know  how  to  become  free,  and 
being  free  inwardly,  in  spite  of  all  his  submission, 
he  will  experience  the  true  joys  of  freedom.  He 
would  fear  no  greatness,  no  honour,  no  talent,  for 
he  fears  only  evil.  He  would  be  sceptical  only 
on  one  point,  viz.  the  reputed  ease  of  the  pillow 
of  scepticism  to  a  teste  bien  faicte.  If  he  lacks 
pedigree,  he  would  rejoice  in  the  aristocracy,  and 
still  more  that  he  does  not  belong  to  it,  for  in  be- 
holding it  at  a  distance  he  can  admire  it  the  better 
and  respect  it  the  more.  He  wrould  have  rebellious 
thoughts  only  for  ugliness.  He  would  only  find  fault 
with  great  personages  if  they  were  too  small,  badly 
dressed,  or  appeared  in  assemblies  in  vulgar  grace- 
less costumes,  or  if  they  kept  their  fine  collections 
from  the  public,  and  cut  down  their  old  oaks  or 
olives.     Against  the  wealthy  he  would  only  have  one 


278     HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

complaint;  the  ruin  of  old  dwellings,  and  the  con- 
struction of  new  buildings  of  which  "  the  counte- 
nance is  indifferent."  But  everything  which  honours 
what  is  ancient  and  beautiful  he  would  honour.  He 
would  mock  only  at  mockery.  He  would  hate  only 
hatred.     He  would  contemn  only  contempt. 

Thus  by  true  reverence  and  with  no  thought  ot 
self  he  would  be  happy.  We  may  judge  whether 
many  lives  in  history  are  happier  than  those  of  the 
great  landscape-painters.  These  were  often  ill  like 
Chintreuil,  often  poor  like  Corot,  often  misanthropic 
like  Turner,  often  threatened  with  blindness  like 
Troyon;  and  if,  nevertheless,  their  lives  have  been 
as  relatively  happy  as  their  letters  and  their  auto- 
biographies seem  to  indicate,  the  reason  is,  that  they 
spent  their  life  in  reverent  admiration.  Unhappiness 
comes  from  envy ;  whoever  admires  with  all  his 
heart  does  not  envy.  Unhappiness  proceeds  also 
from  regret — in  revering,  we  no  longer  remember; 
or  from  rancour — in  revering,  we  pardon  ;  or  from 
doubts — in  revering,  we  believe. 

The  unhappiness  not  only  of  the  individual  but 
also  of  the  community,  proceeds  from  these  evils  and 
can  be  cured  only  by  this  antidote.  This  feeling  of 
reverent  admiration,  which,  while  it  is  the  sole  and 
supreme  necessity  for  jesthetical  life,  is  at  the  same 
time  the  one  remedy  for  social  evils.  It  is  the  direct 
antidote  to  the  foolish  desire  for  praise,  a  desire 
which  destroys  all  enthusiasm,  a  puerile  conceit 
which  consumes  all  love.     We  protest  a  great  deal 


III.   LIFE  279 

in  these  days  against  the  power  of  money,  but  the 
social  canker  does  not  lie  here ;  it  is  only  one  of 
its  symptoms.  Money  is  deeply  coveted  because  the 
satisfactions  it  procures  for  vanity  are  the  principal 
objects  coveted.  When  we  seek  for  gold  rather 
than  life,  it  is  not  to  transform  it  into  useful  means 
of  existence,  but  into  the  playthings  of  vanity  and 
luxury.  It  is  not  that  we  should  be  able  to  say 
frankly  and  openly:  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  but  to  be 
able  to  think  secretly  and  jealously:  Let  us  be  bril- 
liant and  admired,  and  above  all  let  no  one  be  more 
brilliant  or  more  admired  than  ourselves  !  The  pas- 
sion of  the  capitalist  for  accumulation  is  one  form 
which  this  desire  takes,  but  it  is  not  the  only  one; 
the  other  is  the  passion  of  the  revolutionist.  He 
who  for  his  own  advantage  endeavours  to  extend  the 
power  of  money  because  he  has  it,  and  he  who  asks 
to  destroy  it  because  he  has  none,  are  impelled  alike 
by  the  same  feeling :  pride.  It  gleams  in  the  eyes  of 
the  revolutionary  apostle  who  arrays  himself  with 
the  pomp  of  poverty,  quite  as  much  as  in  those  of 
the  pharisee  resplendent  in  his  luxury.  Impatient  of 
all  inequality,  dissatisfied  with  all  superiority,  and 
detesting  all  kinds  of  government,  the  one  and  the 
other  have  the  same  object :  the  wish  to  appear  to 
the  world  in  the  same  guise  as  the  great.  This  is 
manifested  quite  as  much  by  loud  and  vaunted  con- 
tempt of  money  as  by  extreme  and  obstinate  desire 
of  it,  and  is  reiterated  by  the  onslaught  of  the  Socialist 
prophets  in  their  attempts   to   cut  down  the  steps  or 


280    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

the  social  ladder,  and  by  the  worshippers  of  Mammon 
in  their  clever  manoeuvres  to  hide  each  step  by  cover- 
ing it  with  gold.  A  painting  by  M.  Rochegrosse  gives 
one  of  the  truest  pictures  of  our  modern  social  system. 
It  was  exhibited  at  one  of  our  recent  Salons,  and 
will  not  be  easily  forgotten.  Upon  the  heights  of 
a  rich,  ugly,  unquiet  manufacturing  town,  its  sky 
darkened  with  smoky  emanations  from  an  unhealthy, 
profitless  toil,  a  crowd  of  human  beings,  hungering 
for  riches,  honour,  social  advancement,  and  notoriety, 
is  struggling,  every  man  with  his  brother,  in  a  kind 
of  human  pyramid.  They  hurtle  and  fight,  fall  and 
rise  again,  climbing  regardless  of  peace,  regardless 
of  beauty,  regardless  of  life,  towards  a  gilded  figure 
of  Fortune  which  soars  above,  always  out  of  reach, 
eluding  the  empty  outstretched  hands  below. 

For  an  idea  of  another  and  better  life  let  us 
turn  to  a  well-known  picture  by  Burne-Jones,  The 
Golden  Stairs.  In  a  high  narrow  frame,  a  golden 
staircase,  spiral  and  without  balusters,  like  a  ladder 
in  a  dream,  leads  from  an  unknown  floor  up  to  an 
unseen  landing.  Maidens  crowned  with  leaves  and 
draped  in  delicate  tunics,  the  folds  as  straight  as  the 
fluting  of  a  column,  are  descending  the  steps,  some 
holding  violas,  others  cymbals  or  tambourines,  others 
again  the  long  trumpets  which  in  the  blue  skies  of 
Fra  Angelico  dart  like  sunbeams  from  the  hands 
of  angels.  Their  bare  feet  are  standing  on  the 
golden  steps,  and  the  fingers  of  their  tapering  hands 
touch  the  silver  strings  of  lutes,  and  press  the  stops 


III.  LIFE  281 

of  reeds.  The  gleaming  stairs  reflect  their  feet,  and 
the  vibrating  chords  the  souls  of  the  sad-faced 
minstrels.  Sheaves  of  foliage  stand  below  as  in  the 
porch  of  a  church  on  Palm  Sunday.  Here  and 
there  a  head  is  turned — as  if  in  regret.  Eye  looks 
into  eye  as  if  to  read  a  secret.  A  head  is  bowed 
as  if  in  thought — lips  smile  to  lips  as  if  for  a  kiss. 
Here  and  there  beneath  the  peaceful  brows,  deep-set 
eyes  look  forth  beyond  the  frame,  beyond  the  halls, 
beyond  the  house,  perhaps  beyond  the  world  itself. 
They  carol  and  they  play.  In  truth,  the  music  is 
weak,  their  raiment  simple,  and  it  is  but  a  narrow 
dwelling.  But  there  is  grace  in  their  light  gestures, 
calm  on  their  steadfast  countenances.  Quite  at  the 
top  of  the  canvas  doves  have  settled  for  a  moment 
on  the  tiled  roof,  to  draw  as  it  seems  the  envy  of 
the  skies  to  this  lovely  spot  on  earth,  or  it  may  be, 
perhaps,  to  carry  the  olive  branch  gathered  here  to 
ambitious  souls  storm-tossed  on  the  breakers  of  the 
world.  Every  ambition  is  appeased,  all  noise  is 
hushed,  and  instead  of  climbing  to  grasp  a  Chimera, 
all  step  gladly  and  simply  down  the  grades  of  social 
existence,  descending  the  slopes  of  Fortune  —  the 
Steps  of  the  Golden  Stairs. 

When  Ruskin's  dream  is  accomplished  Humanity, 
instead  of  mounting  to  the  assault  of  riches,  will 
descend  the  Golden  Stairs.  Everything  will  be 
ordered  for  peace  and  for  beauty.  The  rails  of  the 
railway  will  be  buried  in  the  fields :  the  remains  of 
stations  will  be  as  rare   as   the   vestiges   of  ancient 


282     HIS  iESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

Roman  camps :  and  the  last  of  the  locomotives  will 
be  on  show  in  some  museum,  by  the  side  of  the  coach 
that  Louis  XVI.  had  to  wait  for.  No  factory  chimney 
will  darken  the  sky  with  smoke.  The  hand  of  man 
will  take  the  place  of  steam,  so  that  we  shall  hear 
no  more  of  work  without  workmen,  or  of  workmen 
without  work.  Steam  reaping-machines,  monsters 
which  devour  the  wage  of  the  agricultural  labourer, 
will  no  longer  creak  and  scream  in  the  fields,  but 
"the  curves  of  the  scythe  will  dart  forth  blue  light- 
nings as  they  catch  the  sunlight  in  the  hands  of  the 
reapers."  The  illogical  temper  of  the  age  which 
replaces  as  far  as  possible  manual  labour  by  newly 
invented  machines,  and  at  the  same  time  is  indig- 
nant at  the  number  of  hands  it  leaves  unoccupied, 
will  disappear.  Iron  will  no  longer  be  cast  in  un- 
changing moulds,  it  will  be  forged  each  time  anew. 
Certain  tasks  will  be  performed  less  quickly,  but 
they  will  be  better  accomplished.  We  shall  no 
longer  buy  butter  from  unknown  people  who  send 
it  to  us  from  a  distance  of  two  or  three  hundred 
miles.  The  purchaser  will  know  his  provider,  and 
they  will  shake  hands  with  each  other.  Perhaps  also 
the  suppression  of  the  intermediary,  "  the  middle- 
man," will  bring  greater  profit  to  both.  Travellers  will 
journey  along  the  roads  more  observant  if  more  dila- 
tory than  in  these  days,  and  the  news  they  bring  will 
be  coloured  by  their  imagination.  It  will  probably 
be  quite  as  true  as  accounts  in  newspapers.  The 
social    condition    of  the  wayfarer  will   be    recognised 


III.  LIFE  283 

at  the  distance  of  a  hundred  yards,  for  the  people 
of  every  caste  and  of  every  trade  will  have  special 
costumes,  designed  and  fitted  to  perfection,  but  not 
interchangeable.  The  glazier  will  have  one  as  well 
as  the  haberdasher.  There  will  be  no  fear  of  mis- 
taking the  senator  for  a  hairdresser,  or  the  Prime 
Minister  for  his  youngest  clerk.  The  clothes  of  all 
will  be  as  spotless  as  those  of  the  Horse  Guards 
or  of  the  Queen's  dairymaids.  But  on  high-days 
and  holidays  family  chests  will  be  ransacked  for 
gorgeous  apparel.  "The  women  will  have  jewellery 
and  uncut  gems ;  the  peasants  will  be  dressed  in  pure 
colours,  beautiful  and  bright.  Those  who  nurse  the 
sick  and  feed  the  poor  will  be  clad  in  purple  and 
gold  :  soldiers  on  the  contrary  in  black,  like  public 
executioners,  so  that  children,  who  are  fond  of  bright 
uniforms,  instead  of  playing  at  soldiers,  should  play 
at  philanthropists.  The  nobles  will  keep  all  the  in- 
signia of  their  rank,  but  with  gems  uncut,  their  beauty 
not  being  increased  by  cutting,  which  disturbs  the 
poor  mineralogists  in  their  researches  and  is  very 
expensive.  The  money  which  the  English  habitu- 
ally spend  in  cutting  diamonds  would,  in  ten  years, 
if  it  were  applied  to  cutting  rocks  instead,  leave  no 
dangerous  reef  nor  difficult  harbour  round  the  whole 
island  coast." 

The  great  nobles,  possessors  of  ancestral  estates, 
will  not  be  despoiled  by  others,  but  they  will  set  to 
work  to  despoil  themselves.  They  will  live  con- 
stantly   on    their    properties,    teaching    the    peasants 


284    HIS  .ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

dancing,  music,  with  the  history  of  their  provinces, 
even  to  that  of  their  old  clock-tower.  The  landowner 
will  no  longer  live  in  Piccadilly  and  spend  on  race- 
courses the  money  produced  by  the  labour  of  the 
workman  in  the  country.  He  will  live  in  his  own 
park  and  scatter  his  money  on  the  fields  of  corn 
and  flowers.  He  will  indeed  only  retain  of  this 
money  the  just  rent  due  for  the  directing  of  the 
labour  of  his  workmen,  that  is,  if  he  is  capable  of 
so  directing  them.  The  remainder  he  will  restore 
to  its  owner.  If  it  is  asked  :  To  whom,  and  how  ? 
— To  the  land,  in  manure  to  renew  it ;  and  to  the 
workmen,  in  works  of  art  to  educate  them.  For 
example,  "he  would  give  the  parish  school  precious 
minerals  or  books  or  beautiful  Greek  vases,  Lecythi, 
(Enochoes,  or  those  little  Tanagra  figures  so  full  of 
teaching  from  having  dwelt  so  long  among  the  dead." 
The  schools  will  be  decorated  from  top  to  bottom 
with  images  of  the  highest  art  or  specimens  of  the 
most  serviceable  objects,  for  it  is  "just  in  the 
emptiest  room  that  the  mind  wanders  most,  for  it 
gets  restless  like  a  bird  for  want  of  a  perch,  and 
casts  about  for  any  possible  means  of  getting  out 
and  away." 

Not  only  in  school  but  everywhere  we  shall  gain 
all  our  knowledge  from  the  eye.  Art  will  penetrate 
into  all  the  nooks  and  corners  of  life,  for  the  cowl 
truly  makes  the  monk,  and  "  to  teach  taste  is  inevit- 
ably to  form  character."  Everything  around  will 
speak   first   to    the   eye   and    then   to  the  heart.      A 


III.  LIFE  285 

Lraveller  who  visits  an  unknown  town  will  be  greeted, 
not  by  colossal  advertisements  of  chocolate  mer- 
chants or  bicycles,  but  by  some  such  inscription  as 
formerly  met  the  eyes  of  wearied  wayfarers  on 
entering  the  north  gate  of  Siena  : 

"  Cor  magis  tibi  Sena  pandit." 

So,  too,  when  standing  for  a  moment  or  leaning 
against  the  pillars  of  a  shop  door,  where  some  poet 
— Roumanille  or  William  Morris — may  be  offering 
for  sale  books  or  candlesticks,  these  pillars  will  recall 
to  us  something  well  worth  the  memory  touching 
the  marble  or  stone  quarries  of  Italy,  or  Greece,  of 
Africa,  or  Spain, — for  "  even  the  unsculptured  walls 
of  our  streets  will  become  to  us  volumes  as  precious 
as  those  of  our  libraries."  The  metallic  currency 
will  also  address  the  eye  by  its  chasing,  the  touch 
by  its  "  delicacy,  and  the  heart  by  its  purity ;  there 
will  be  ducats  and  half-ducats,  in  gold,  florins,  penny, 
halfpenny,  and  one  fifth  of  penny  in  silver":  the 
smaller  coins  being  "beat  thin  and  pierced  with 
apertures."  The  gold  ducat  "  will  bear  the  figure  of 
the  archangel  Michael :  on  the  reverse,  a  branch  of 
Alpine  rose :  above  the  rose  -  branch,  the  words 
1  Sit  splendor s ';  above  the  Michael,  *  Fiat  voluntas'; 
.  .  .  round  the  edge  of  the  coin,  'Domini.1"  The 
coin  will  be  not  only  up  to  standard  but  absolutely 
pure  metal,  so  as  to  teach  honour  to  the  nation.  In 
this  way  the  State  will  speak  of  beauty  to  the  multi- 
tude by  all  means  in  its  power,  by  the  temples,  by 


286     HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

the  walls,  by  the  bells,  by  the  costumes,  by  the 
arms,  and  especially  by  public  ceremonies  which 
will  be  luxurious  —  of  a  luxury  for  all  and  by  the 
help  of  all — and  by  national  festivals. 

One  of  these  festivals  will  be  that  of  marriage. 
"  In  every  year  there  should  be  two  festivals,  one 
on  the  first  of  May,  and  one  at  the  feast  of  harvest 
home  in  each  district,"  at  the  time  when  heaven 
promises,  and  at  the  time  when  it  has  given.  The 
authorities  will  proclaim  the  permission  to  marry, 
before  the  assembled  people,  for  they  alone  may 
marry  who  have  attained  a  vigorous  physical  and 
moral  existence.  This  permission  will  be  given  to 
them  "  as  the  national  attestation  that  the  first 
portion  of  their  lives  has  been  rightly  fulfilled." 
The  young  girls  will  receive  the  title  of  "  rosiere " 
and  the  youths  that  of  "  bachelor,"  "  and  so  be  led  in 
joyful  procession,  with  music  and  singing."  Nothing 
must  be  done  impromptu  or  by  chance.  "  When  a 
youth  is  fully  in  love  with  a  girl,  and  feels  that  he 
is  wise  in  loving  her,  he  should  at  once  tell  her  so 
plainly,  and  take  his  chance  bravely,  with  other 
suitors.  No  lover  should  have  the  insolence  to 
think  of  being  accepted  at  once,  nor  should  any  girl 
have  the  cruelty  to  refuse  at  once;  without  severe 
reasons.  If  she  simply  does  not  like  him,  she  may 
send  him  away  for  seven  years  or  so — he  vowing 
to  live  on  cresses,  and  wear  sackcloth  meanwhile, 
or  the  like  penance ;  if  she  likes  him  a  little,  or 
thinks  she  might  come  to  like  him  in  time,  she  may 


III.   LIFE  287 

let  him  stay  near  her,  putting  him  always  on  sharp 
trial  to  see  what  stuff  he  is  made  of,  and  requiring, 
figuratively,  as  many  lion-skins  or  giants'  heads  as 
she  thinks  herself  worth.  The  whole  meaning  and 
power  of  true  courtship  is  Probation  ;  and  it  ought 
not  to  be  shorter  than  three  years  at  least, — seven 
is,  to  my  own  mind,  the  orthodox  time.  And  these 
relations  between  the  young  people  should  be  openly 
and  simply  known,  not  to  their  friends  only,  but  to 
every  one  who  has  the  least  interest  in  them  :  and 
a  girl  worth  anything  ought  to  have  always  a  dozen 
or  so  of  suitors  under  vow  for  her." 

When  she  has  chosen  her  companion  for  the 
journey  she  will  await  the  national  feast  of  marriage, 
for  there  will  be  but  one  marriage-day,  as  at  Venice 
in  the  tenth  century.  "This  day  will  be  a  festival 
for  all, — an  actual  festival  for  some,  a  commemorative 
festival  for  others.  There  will  be  a  great  display  of 
magnificence,  and  no  one  will  be  envious  that  every 
bride  is  vestita,  per  antico  uso,  di  bianco,  e  con  chioine 
sparse  giu  per  le  spalle,  conteste  con  filo  d'oro."  On 
other  days  the  villagers  will  be  enacting  scenes  de- 
picted by  Le  Nain  or  by  Millet,  but  on  that  day 
scenes  such  as  Lancret  or  Watteau  would  love 
to  paint.  Perfect  equality  will  exist  between  all  as 
the  same  sun  shines  upon  all,  and  the  couples 
there  united  will  not  start  along  different  paths  in 
life  according  to  their  social  conditions.  When  they 
leave  the  church  one  will  not,  as  nowadays,  find  in 
readiness    a    softly-cushioned    coupe    full    of  flowers, 


288    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

while  another  has  to  climb  the  rude  staircase  of  a 
hovel.  No.  The  State  will  provide  every  poor 
bachelor  and  rosiere  with  a  fixed  income  for  seven 
years,  and  will  withhold  from  every  rich  "bachelor" 
and  every  rich  "  rosiere  "  all  their  wealth  for  the  same 
period,  allowing  them  an  equal  sum  with  the  poor, 
11  so  that  the  rich  and  poor  should  not  be  sharply 
separated  in  the  beginning  of  the  war  of  life;  but 
the  one  supported  against  the  first  stress  of  it  long 
enough  to  enable  them  to  secure  their  footing,  the 
others  trained  somewhat  in  the  use  of  moderate  means," 
and  therefore  disposed  to  acquire  greater  abundance 
by  the  exercise  of  a  handicraft  and  also  to  find 
pleasure  in  work. 

It  will  be  said :  That  is  impossible.  Ruskin  has 
never  said  it  was  possible :  he  only  said  it  was  to  be 
desired.  He  never  speaks  of  these  things  except  as 
of  a  picture  for  which  both  canvas  and  colours  are 
lacking,  and  has  never  put  them  elsewhere  than  in 
the  Island  of  Barataria.  Ruskin  does  not  look  to 
the  reason  of  man  to  move  the  world, — he  puts  his 
trust  in  love, 

"  L'amor  che  muove  il  sole  e  l'altre  stelle," 

and  he  appeals  for  aid  to  the  queenly  power  of 
women.  She  is  the  Dea  ex  machina  in  this  sweet 
fable  of  humanity  that  he  puts  into  the  place  of  the 
world.  When  he  despairs  of  ugly  and  perverse  man, 
he  turns  to  her  "  whose  first  duty  is  to  charm," 
and  he  begs  her  openly  to  be  strong  where  man   is 


III.  LIFE  289 

weak,  to  be  modest  where  he  is  boastful,  devoted 
where  he  is  egotistical.  In  the  portrait  he  paints 
we  do  not  recognise  the  sumptuous  and  learned 
women  of  the  Renaissance,  the  Isabella  d'Este  of 
Lionardo  or  of  Lorenzo  Costa,  as  depicted  in  the 
Louvre  picture,  nor  even  the  Marchesa  di  Pescairo 
of  Paolo  Veronese,  nor  yet  St.  Anna's  visitor,  who 
in  the  frescoes  of  Santa  Maria  Novella  advances 
with  measured  step,  all  sparkling  with  gems,  and 
garlanded  by  Ghirlandajo,  the  man  of  gems.  No,  it 
is  the  woman  of  the  primitive  pictures  and  of  the  old 
Flemish  or  Tuscan  masters  of  the  first  period,  sitting 
erect  and  calm  on  a  queenly  chair  and  "govern- 
ing her  house  by  her  glance,  pale  like  the  faces  in 
tapestry,  bewitching  as  a  fairy,  tranquil  and  glowing 
as  a  torch."  She  knows  everything,  but  she  does  not 
deck  herself  with  knowledge  as  with  a  jewel.  She 
learns  many  languages  in  order  that  she  may  "  under- 
stand the  sweetness  of  a  stranger's  tongue."  She 
also  knows  how  to  sew,  to  prepare  the  daily  meal, 
to  keep  accounts,  and  to  tend  the  sick.  Her  clothing 
is  not  luxurious,  but  she  thinks  of  that  of  others — the 
poor  and  needy  in  workhouses,  asylums,  and  hospitals. 
When  she  dresses  in  costly  garments  it  is  for  a  great 
public  ceremony  of  traditional  solemnity,  like  the 
maidens  who  follow  St.  Ursula  in  Carpaccio's  picture, 
or  that  her  beauty  may  do  homage  to  some  great 
idea  and  be  a  gracious  spectacle  for  the  people  who 
have  no  other  spectacles.  She  enters  into  no  con- 
tests or  struggles,  but  she  buckles  the  armour  on  the 

T 


290    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

shoulder  of  her  husband  for  the  battle.  She  does 
not  speak  of  emancipation  nor  go  to  women's  meet- 
ings in  rivalry  with  men,  but  she  becomes  the  last 
appeal  of  man's  action  and  accords  the  prize  of  the 
tournament.  "A  true  wife,  in  her  husband's  house, 
is  his  servant ;  it  is  in  his  heart  that  she  is  queen.  .  .  . 
From  her,  through  all  the  world's  clamour,  he  must 
win  his  praise ;  in  her,  through  all  the  world's  war- 
fare, he  must  find  his  peace."  She  will  not  be  at  her 
mirror  like  Titian's  picture  of  Laura  Dimiti.  The 
pure  simple  lines  of  her  face  will  be  reflected  in  the 
polished  copper  on  the  dresser  or  in  the  deep  blue  of 
the  cuirass.  Above  all  she  is  joyous.  She  does  not 
dwell  upon  the  pious  pictures  of  Mothers  weeping 
beneath  a  crucifix.  If  she  has  sorrow,  if  she  has 
tears,  she  shakes  them  off  like  a  "roseleaf  shakes  off 
rain,"  and  reappears  the  brighter.  She  "follows  after 
righteousness,"  but  she  does  not  preach  sermons. 
Her  hands  are  busy,  not  folded.  She  stays  in  her 
house  as  a  queen  in  her  kingdom — she  watches  and 
beautifies  it,  active  in  the  morning,  tired  at  night. 
Her  life  flows  onward  amidst  work,  love,  and  beauty. 
And  when  it  is  in  part  run  out  "  the  perfect  loveli- 
ness of  a  woman's  countenance  will  consist  in  that 
majestic  peace  which  is  founded  in  the  memory  of 
happy  and  useful  years."  She  will  thus  shed  light 
on  everything  around  her  and  on  the  path  of  her 
husband  and  son.  In  her  eyes  there  will  be  light 
as  well  as  fire,  in  her  soul  there  will  be  reverence  as 
well  as  pity.     She  will  have  no  imaginary  grievances 


III.   LIFE  291 

against  the  decrees  of  fate,  as  she  will  not  expect  of 
life  more  than  it  can  bestow,  or  of  death  any  certain 
promise.  No  sadness  will  float  across  her  sweet  un- 
covered brow ;  none,  unless  perhaps  now  and  then 
when  she  wanders  through  this  Ruskinian  Arcadia 
circled  by  blue  mountains,  and  discovers  some  simple 
tomb  beneath  an  olive  tree  revealing  some  forgot- 
ten life  with  the  melancholy  thought  of  Poussin's 
shepherdess  scarce  expressed  :  Et  in  Arcadia  ego. 

And  the  future  ?  The  future  need  not  concern  us. 
Our  duty  in  this  life  is  enough.  It  is  puerile  to 
deny  the  next ;  and  to  discuss  and  argue  about  it  is 
presumptuous.  What  is  there  to  affirm  ?  Let  us  be 
content  to  admire  and  love  what  we  can  see  and 
not  to  expect  any  material  reward.  "  The  purest 
forms  of  our  own  religion  have  always  consisted  in 
sacrificing  less  things  to  win  greater ;  time,  to  win 
eternity ;  the  world,  to  win  the  skies."  Let  us  ex- 
pect no  other  recompense  from  the  skies  but  their 
splendour,  from  the  earth  but  its  peace.  Let  us 
adopt  our  notion  of  heroism  from  the  young  Greek 
of  old,  who  would  give  his  life  for  a  kiss  and  not 
obtain  it.  It  is  not  well  to  disturb  seers  when  they 
speak  to  us  of  a  marvellous  land  where  "  the  ocean 
breezes  blow  round  the  Blessed  Islands,  and  golden 
flowers  burn  on  their  bright  trees  for  evermore." 
Let  us  listen  to  the  prophets  as  we  listen  to  the 
singing  of  the  birds.  They  form  part  of  the  heri- 
tage of  Beauty.  Let  us  not  imagine  "  the  sight  of 
any  thrones  in  heaven  but  the  rocks,  or  of  any  spirits 


2Q2    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

but  the  clouds."  In  the  flowers  among  the  rocks, 
in  the  broideries  of  the  clouds,  so  intensely  loved, 
we  may  acknowledge  "  the  mystery  of  Power,  Bene- 
ficence, and  Peace  which  underlies  them,"  and  not 
deny  the  personality  of  their  Maker.  Life  has  no 
reward  but  life  itself,  veneration  for  the  Unknown 
artist  none  but  veneration,  love  for  all  His  works 
none  but  Love  itself. 

"  But  if  this  life  be  no  dream,  and  the  world  no 
hospital,  but  your  palace-inheritance; — if  all  the  peace 
and  power  and  joy  you  can  ever  win,  must  be  won 
now,  and  all  fruit  of  victory  gathered  here,  or  never; 
— will  you  still,  throughout  the  puny  totality  of  your 
life,  weary  yourselves  in  the  fire  for  vanity  ?  If 
there  is  no  rest  which  remaineth  for  you,  is  there 
none  you  might  presently  take  ?  was  this  grass  of 
the  earth  made  green  for  your  shroud  only,  not  for 
your  bed  ?  and  can  you  never  lie  down  upon  it,  but 
only  under  it  ?  The  heathen,  in  their  saddest  hours, 
thought  not  so.  They  knew  that  life  brought  its 
contest,  but  they  expected  from  it  also  the  crown  of  all 
contest :  No  proud  one !  no  jewelled  circlet  flaming 
through  Heaven  above  the  height  of  the  unmerited 
throne ;  only  some  few  leaves  of  wild  olive,  cool  to 
the  tired  brow,  through  a  few  years  of  peace.  It 
should  have  been  of  gold,  they  thought ;  but  Jupiter 
was  poor ;  this  was  the  best  the  god  could  give 
them.  Seeking  a  better  than  this,  they  had  known 
it  a  mockery.  Not  in  war,  not  in  wealth,  not  in 
tyranny,   was  there   any  happiness   to  be  found  for 


III.   LIFE  293 

them — only  in  kindly  peace,  fruitful  and  free.  The 
wreath  was  to  be  of  wild  olive,  mark  you: — the 
tree  that  grows  carelessly,  tufting  the  rocks  with  no 
vivid  bloom,  no  verdure  of  branch  ;  only  with  soft 
snow  of  blossom,  and  scarcely  fulfilled  fruit,  mixed 
with  grey  leaf  and  thorn-set  stem ;  no  fastening  of 
diadem  for  you  but  with  such  sharp  embroidery  ! 
But  this,  such  as  it  is,  you  may  win,  while  yet  you 
live ;  type  of  grey  honour,  and  sweet  rest.1  Free 
heartedness,  and  graciousness,  and  undisturbed  trust, 
and  requited  love,  and  the  sight  of  the  peace  of 
others,  and  the  ministry  to  their  pain;  these, — and 
the  blue  sky  above  you,  and  the  sweet  waters  and 
flowers  of  the  earth  beneath ;  and  mysteries  and  pre- 
sences, innumerable,  of  living  things, — may  yet  be 
here  your  riches ;  untormenting  and  divine :  service- 
able for  the  life  that  now  is;  nor,  it  may  be,  with- 
out promise  of  that  which  is  to  come." 

This  might  be  called  the  metaphysic  of  the  land- 
scape-painter. "The  sun  is  God,"  said  the  dying 
Turner,  and  Corot  also  on  his  deathbed  cried :  "  Look, 
look  at  these  landscapes."  In  admiration  and  grati- 
tude, they  prayed  in  their  last  hour  that  the  beauty  of 
Nature  might  remain  their  reward  beyond  the  grave. 
Their  happiness  had  been  in  things  seen  far  from 
the  haunts  of  men,  by  the  banks  of  rivers,  on  the 
slopes  of  the  hills,  in  the  solitude  of  the  woods  and 
in  the  caves  of  the  earth,  and  when  the  time  came 
for   them   to  leave  this   world    they  desired  only   to 

1  ixeXirdeacra,  ae6\wv  y'  'ivenev. 


294    HIS  ESTHETIC  AND  SOCIAL  THOUGHT 

find  its  image  in  heaven.     Or  might  we  say  this  earth 
had  been  indeed  their  heaven  ? 

For  Ruskin  also  passionate  love  of  nature  has  been 
Alpha  and  Omega.  It  has  controlled  every  feature 
of  his  personality,  dictated  all  his  words,  dominated 
every  thought.  This  was  the  fire  which  illuminated, 
animated  and  purified  him,  preserving  him  from  the 
meanness  of  hatred,  and  prevailing  over  the  sorrows 
of  human  love.  It  led  him  by  the  path  of  analysis 
to  a  truer  knowledge  of  his  mistress,  and  over  the 
highest  regions  of  synthetic  thought  to  a  deeper  love 
of  her  he  had  learned  to  know.  It  sent  him  in  quest 
of  science,  that  he  might  dive  deep  into  the  secrets  of 
Nature ;  but  it  shielded  him  against  the  futilities  of 
that  science  by  revealing  those  aesthetic  relations  of 
things  which  science  neither  explores  nor  admits,  if 
only  for  the  very  reason  that  they  belong  to  the 
domain  of  Art.  It  determined  his  conception  of  Art 
and  was  the  foundation  of  all  his  definitions.  Lastly, 
it  armed  him  against  those  presumptuous  men  who 
would  fain  improve  upon  Nature,  and  imbued  him 
with  the  deepest  sympathy  for  those  who  live  labori- 
ously amidst  her  joys,  or  for  those  who,  in  our  artificial 
nineteenth-century  cities,  are  for  ever  deprived  of 
them.  Though  in  our  opinion  he  may  not  have  at- 
tained to  absolute  Truth,  we  are  not  therefore  alarmed 
either  for  him  or  for  ourselves.  It  may  be  in  the 
darkness  of  our  night  the  "  Wise  Men  "  are  led  astray 
by  Will-o'-the-wisps,  and  only  the  poor  shepherd 
marks  the  guiding  star.     But  speaking  of  these  kingly 


III.   LIFE  295 

wanderers,  of  whom  Ruskin  has  been  one,  let  us  say 
that  it  is  not  the  light  in  their  sky  but  the  power  in 
their  heart  which  prevails.  The  star  may  lead  them 
to  the  oasis  of  faith  or  to  the  desert  of  doubt,  but  if 
they  have  prayed  for  Truth  and  sought  her  honestly, 
disinterestedly,  and  humbly,  oasis  or  desert  will  be 
alike  for  them  a  Bethlehem.  And  for  this  aged  man 
who  for  sixty  years  of  his  life  has  chanted,  "  Glory 
to  Beauty  in  the  highest,"  there  must  surely  be  some 
angels  of  the  Holy  Night  who  tarry  still  to  answer, 
"On  earth  Peace,  Goodwill  towards  men." 


APPENDICES 


APPENDIX   A 

Pp.  28,  29,  30. — Referring  to  the  meeting  at  Sheffield 
of  some  members  of  the  St.  George's  Guild — the  occasion 
was  the  inauguration  of  the  new  Museum  at  Meersbrook 
Park.  Mr.  Ruskin  could  not  be  present,  owing  to  ill- 
health  ;  he  had  previously  visited  Sheffield  as  the  guest 
of  some  friends  who  were  not  members  of  St.  George's 
Guild.  The  journey  by  postchaise  did  not  take  place  on 
any  of  these  occasions,  but  was  undertaken  purely  as  an 
experiment  in  travelling,  and  was  wholly  unconnected 
with  any  operations  of  St.  George's  Guild.  For  the  history 
of  the  tea-shop,  see  Fors  Clavigera,  Letter  48. 

G.  A. 


APPENDIX   B 

P.  32. — Mr.  George  Thomson,  one  of  the  Trustees  for 
St.  George's  Guild,  comments  as  follows  on  the  account 
of  the  mill  at  Laxey :  "Not  true  to  fact — all  machine 
carding  and  spinning  ; "  and  he  substitutes  "  weaving " 
for  "  bleaching."  His  remark  on  the  mode  of  payment 
to  the  farmers  for  their  wool  is  :  "  Not  true  now — con- 
ducted on  ordinary  business  lines." 

The  letter  from  Mr.  Thomson  to  me,  appended  below, 
speaks  for  itself : — 

"  Jan.  18/99. 

"  You  give  me  a  somewhat  difficult  task.  The  whole 
statement  should  be  reduced  to  a  very  simple  paragraph, 
as  the  matter  is  an  exaggerated  view  of  Fors — entirely 
misleading  and  really  not  true  in  fact. 

"  My  first  active  association  with  Ruskin  economies  arose 
through  Swan  showing  me  some  patterns — which  I  had 
previously  been  led  from  reading  Fors  to  believe  were 
made  under  such  conditions  as  the  writer  describes.  To 
my  amazement  I  found  they  were  really  produced  upon 
very  antiquated  machinery,  and  badly  made  machine  goods  ; 
and  being  very  anxious  for  the  Master's  reputation  I  at 
once  condemned  them  as  frauds  on  the  public,  which 
would  sooner  or  later  lead  to  failure.  Swan  told  the 
Master,  and  he  wrote  asking  me  to  take  the  whole  thing 
off  his  hands,  as  it  had  been  a  great  bother  to  him.     I 


APPENDIX    B  301 

went  over  and  found  the  place  exactly  what  I  had  imagined 
from  seeing  the  goods ;  neither  hand-spinning  or  hand- 
weaving — about  three  persons  employed,  two  men  including 
Rydings  and  one  old  woman  doing  odd  jobs.  I  saw  at 
once  the  only  way  to  save  the  Guild  money  was  to  put 
the  place  upon  a  business  footing,  and  it  has  continued 
ever  since  to  just  manage  to  keep  the  few  people  employed 
in  a  more  or  less  satisfactory  manner ;  but  I  never  saw 
either  hand-spinning  or  weaving,  and  the  demand  for  the 
goods  arises  almost  entirely  from  '  sentimental '  considera- 
tions for  the  Master,  and  not  from  any  special  virtue  in 
them.  This  has  been  a  difficulty,  i.e.  keeping  up  the 
sentiment,  since  the  Master  withdrew  from  activity." 

G.  A. 


APPENDIX  C 

List  of  Ruskin's  Works  quoted  : 

Mornings  in  Florence — Prseterita — Modern  Painters — 
Sesame  and  Lilies — The  Oxford  Museum — Fors  Clavigera 
— The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture — General  Statement 
explaining  the  Nature  and  Purposes  of  St.  George's  Guild 
— Val  dArno — Arrows  of  the  Chace — The  Queen  of  the 
Air — Deucalion — Time  and  Tide — The  Crown  of  Wild 
Olive — The  Relation  between  Michael  Angelo  and  Tintoret 
— Aratra  Pentelici — The  Harbours  of  England — Letter  to 
Young  Girls — Unto  this  Last — Munera  Pulveris — Frondes 
Agrestes — The  Eagle's  Nest — The  Stones  of  Venice — The 
Elements  of  Drawing — Lectures  on  Art,  1870 — Ethics  of 
the  Dust — Love's  Meinie — St.  Mark's  Rest — Ariadne 
Florentina — The  Laws  of  Fesole — The  Art  of  England — 
Lectures  on  Architecture  and  Painting — A  Joy  for  Ever. 


Printed  by  Ballantyne,  Hanson  &=  Co. 
Edinburgh  &°  London 


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